At the start of another week the weather is looking good for today and tomorrow before another heavy spell of rain returns. With the weather forecast in mind, we are trying to get a lot of cutting and high priority jobs done before it gets too wet. First thing this morning the greens and surrounds were cut and I followed spraying another application of fertiliser and Primo. We applied a little fertiliser, iron and primo last week however I felt a little more nutrition was needed to maintain the health of the turf.

 Up at the 3rd hole where Rich was cutting the surround before the golfers arrived

Other jobs done today were moving holes, cutting tees, cutting fairways and semi, flymoing bunker faces, cutting the 5 inch rough and removing a limb from a tree which had come down at the weekend.

Alistair moving the hole on the 12th green

Joe Marrucci our seasonal bunker raker also was in today to rake all the bunkers

Robin dagger

Rob spent some time with the robin dagger aerating areas where water has been stood around the course. The robin dagger fires compressed air into the soil profile around 50 cm down. This breaks the soil profile hopefully aiding water penetrate away from the surface. Once the areas begin to dry Scott, Rich, Rob and Adam started the tedious task of topdressing and seeding to reinstate grass  coverage.

Today Rich, Will and Scott finished off the bunker drain on the 23rd, then filled the bunker with sand ready for play in a week or so when the sand has settled and is firm enough for play.

Overall the 23rd green banking project has been a success, it has taken along time to complete mainly due to the weather, however with the persistence and dedication of all the greenstaff we have improved the playability of the hole.

This morning our agronomist Robert Laycock visited the course to advise on any problems we are experiencing and talk through our maintenance practices for the forthcoming months. He visits the course 3 times a year and produces advisory notes working in conjunction with my self and the Deputy Head Greenkeeper, Adam Newell. Together we then prepare maintenance strategies for all areas of the golf course which fit our budget, labour and machinery resources. The reports are available for the committee and the members to view. 

Adam and Robert

Robert and myself on the 11th

Robert has been involved with research and advisory work on various aspects of turf for over thirty years. He has an unparalleled range of experience and interests in this field.

Following university, where he studied close-mown turf, he worked on turfgrass research at the Sports Turf Research Institute, Bingley for 6 years. It was while working at STRI that he developed the new optical point quadrat which has been widely used and cited in scientific works around the world. In 1981 he left to work in a technical capacity for plant breeding and grass seed production companies. He is now an agronomist and turfgrass scientist operating in the UK from a North Yorkshire base. He has been advising at Malton and Norton for around 5 years. He has also advises at a number of other golf clubs across the country including some prestigious clubs such as Woburn, The London Golf Club and all the Marriott UK golf venues.

Other jobs done today were installing surface drains at the 10th and 12th, cutting the rest of the fairways, cutting semi, cutting greens, removing some low branches and finishing spraying some areas of clover

Summer at last

I think summer is finally here, today and the mid term forecast is for a warm dry fortnight. This will allow us to make progress with course preparation and maintenance. Today we took on one of our junior members to help us rake the 70 bunkers on the course, he will be working two days a week, this will allow the green staff to concentrate on more high priority tasks. Now the weather has turned for the better we groomed the greens, sprayed them with fertiliser, iron, seaweed and primo maxx, then top dressed and matted the sand in.

 Scott on the 13th

Adam topdressing the 6th

We also spent some time today tidying some of the wet areas, cutting copses, semi, fairways and tees. Scott spot sprayed some patches of clover in the semi rough this afternoon with Praxys selective herbicide. We started to put the second diagonal cut on the fairways to create a diamond cut pattern.

The 3rd fairway

The drain that we installed on the 23rd is filling back in nicely, the turf is knitting well and the bunker drains will be finished tomorrow, also some sand will be put into the bunker and allowed to settle ready for use in a couple of weeks.

After a week away from the golf club, i returned from holiday to find Adam had another tough week in charge, with yet more rain on Wednesday and Thursday. Where the water is standing it is very stagnant and the grass is starting to die in places. This week is forecast to be a lot drier and warmer so hopefully we can get the course back into a drier condition. Today it was Captains day, Adam and the team worked tirelessly though out the wet week to present it in fabulous condition considering. This morning Adam, Rich and myself were in to cut greens and move holes for the day. First thing it was very foggy but thankfully the sun came out before dinner and the course started drying out.

Looking back to the 4th tee around 5.30am this morning

Rescue update

The surrounds that were sprayed with Rescue are now starting to recover from the initial treatment. Where the Rye grass was very thick and in large clumps has left the surround very patchy, areas where the Rye grass was thinner in density and mixed with other grasses that were not effected by the treatment are a lot better with the other grasses growing through well.

The 6th recovering well

Water standing on the golf course from the days and days of rain is starting to become stagnant in areas causing issues to the health of the turf. Where drainage is present the water has been soaked in quickly and removed from the surface leaving cutting and routine maintenance easily achievable. Where no or poor drainage is an issue it is creating problems with cutting and playability of the golf course. The problems areas are on the 1st fairway, around the 13th green and in front of the 17th green. We will have to prioritise drainage in these areas this winter to ensure we do not continue having future problems.

Today we went someway to catching up on cutting across the course from time lost last Friday. We cut fairways again today after cutting them only yesterday, just to try and get a reasonable cut with the amount of growth.

 7th fairway

11th fairway

Greens were groomed and cut this morning, disease pressure is very high at the moment due to the moisture and humidity so an application of iron and seaweed will be applied to the greens later this week if weather conditions allow. Adam, Will, Rich and Scott spent most of the morning restoring bunker sand and raking bunkers from the storm washouts last week.

This afternoon we continued turfing the 23rd drain, hopefully tomorrow we will have finished all the turfing and tidy the area up once more.

Thunder, rain and no cutting today

We were going to finish the drainage off today on the 23rd hole, get all 1-18 cut up for the gents open day tomorrow however 35 minutes into the day we had another torrential thunderstorm closing the course and stopping any attempts to get any grass cutting done. We had another 28mm of rainfall this morning and water stood in places that were beyond belief. With no cutting done today there will be some long areas come Monday and alot of catching up to do!

Lane strimming

It has taken Rob and Will 2 days to strim all the sides of the entrance lane, it was heavily overgrown due to the really wet weather experienced this year, they have done a fantastic job!

Rescue update

The treated Ryegrass is now showing serious signs of die back, as you can see from the pictures it is very yellow and thinning rapidly.

This is the 17th surround which was seriously infested with Ryegrass, as you can see all the Rye grass is dying back, these areas will be oversown in due course.

23rd hole drainage day 2

This morning we continued to drain the area around the 23rd green. First job was to fill yesterdays trench with a blinding layer of pea gravel and then top off with root zone

We then started the outlet drain run which was to run in front of the 22nd green side bunkers so they could be drained in the future

Tomorrow this trench will be finished and back filled as the first trench dug yesterday. Then the bunker on 23 will be drained into the main drainage trench.

23rd hole drainage

Today we tackled one of the last jobs of the  23rd hole bank project. After reshaping the right of the 23rd hole, creating a banking a installing a bunker the drainage needed to be installed to ensure the area remains dry. A total of linear meters of drainage needs to be installed, drainage of the bunker, along the bottom of the bank, across the fairway to an outlet in the ditch to the left of the 22nd hole. We have positioned the drain across the fairway so the green side bunkers on the 22nd hole can be drained in the future. We first took levels of the whole area and then calculated fall. Once we were happy that the drainage was correct excavation started.

Once the trench was dug to the correct level the drainage pipe was installed and back filled with stone.

End of the day first trench dug, stone in, ready for blinding layer of stone and rootzone tomorrow.

14th ditch root excavations

Today Alistair and myself tackled the increasing problem of root development inside the 14th ditch pipework leading to the 14th pond. Over a number of years willow roots from a nearby tree has infested their way into the pipework blocking flow of water from the 14th ditch into the pond. The slow moving water has caused issues further down the pipe. The water flow was slow and stagnant and given all the recent rainfall, water levels in the ditch were high, causing the banks of the ditch to be soft and very difficult to cut.

We estimated the roots had grown around 6 meters up the pipe, causing issues. The only way to solve the problem was to remove the effected pipework. Work began removing the pipes from the pond end.

Once the first sections of pipework were removed it was evident how bad the roots problem was.

After around 6 meters the roots were still blocking the base of the pipework so we had to continue to excavate out the pipe sections until all of the roots were removed.

It wasnt until we had removed 12 meters of pipework that all the roots were removed, once we had cleared them the water level in the ditch dropped around 8 inches, this will help dry up the surrounding banks and ensure water flow remains constant in the ditch.

When we have time we will excavate the remaining soil to enlarge the pond, this area will be GUR until this time.

Pictures of the course on a sunny day, at last!

 The 1st

 The 8th

 The 9th

 11th green

The 11th