The weather has certainly improved, currently a ridge of high pressure is over the UK bring drier, calm, sunny conditions, even feeling warm in the sun. Over night temperatures still are very cold as there are clear skies and frost is inevitable.

 We are making the most of the dry weather by cutting some grass, after the initial frost we have been out cutting surrounds, teesides and tees. There is little growth but cutting regularly helps maintain the surfaces to adequate presentation and playability standards. We cut the surrounds with a hand mower to reduce vehicle damage, the tees and teeside are cut with a national machine set to 13mm for the tees and 30mm for the teesides.

We also finished off the range path and continued with hedge cutting

The 9th green drainage project is also coming to an end, Adam and Rob have worked throughout the last 3 days to ensure the drain is finished as soon as possible to bring the green back in to play and have done a fantastic job. It will be nice to see the back of water standing on this green after rain. They have just got to finish the root zone off and replace the turf.

Today we started installing a drain in the 9th green, this green has been a problem this year with the excess rain we have had. There is a low point towards the back of the green which requires us to push water off after rain. The turf is starting to be affected by the constant wetness. We are taking action by installing a drain which will take water away in to a drain at the front of the green. Adam and Rob dug down to the drain to see the depth which would influence the drain on the green and the fall, fortunately the drain was is deep enough for sufficient fall across the length of the green.

The trench was then dug out, using the laser to ensure the correct depth, and back filled with pipe and gravel. Half the green is being done and completed before moving on to the second half. The drainage will take around 3 days so the pin is placed on the temporary green for the safety of the staff.

Hedges are continued to be cut and the 3 bunkers that were GUR were topped up with sand and brought back into play. Now we have stopped using the driving range path to transport soil we are topping the path up with fresh stone, the base layer has been put in place, tomorrow we will top this off with smaller stone and roll.

A week without rain!

Over the last week we have had no rain and the course is as dry as it has been for months. All of the standing water has just about gone and we can access areas we haven't been able to go with vehicles to tidy up leaves, sticks and repair turf. We have been out with the tornado blower around most of the fairways and semi rough blowing loose divots, leaves and sticks. The last of the turf repairs have been completed and the back of the 25th tee that was reshaped has been turfed, with just the sprinkler head to finish.

Although we have had dry weather is has been very cold and with overnight frosts. This causes damage to the grass when golfers walk on the frozen sward. It will recover when temperatures rise towards spring time.  Visually the course is bleached yellow, with no growth, and definition poor. With spring just around the corner we are planning our fertiliser applications for tees, fairways and surrounds to promote recovery when the weather does improve. A slow release fertiliser will be applied to all these areas within the next month, with a faster release nitrogen form in areas of heavy wear, such as near greens and tees.
Verti draining of fairways and walk ways continued with 1,9, 10 13-18 completed

Machinery servicing continues, also cutting of the hedges is ongoing, currently working behind the range building. We marked out the car park lines once more as the surface was dry.

Next week we will start work on the range path which has needed repair for sometime, damage caused by the ongoing wet weather and course machinery using the path during the drainage work. We will also be starting some tree work, dead and unwanted trees that need to be removed before the stump grinder arrives at the start of March.

Another beautiful day, different problems

This week we are trying to finish turfing the dead areas of grass on the fairways to give it plenty of time to root before warmer weather comes in spring. Dead turf was lifted using the turf lifter and edged with the half moon. Rootzone was added where needed to remove severe low spots where water has originally gathered. Turf has been bought in from Fineland Turf as this is more suited to the fairway grass we want and is grown on sandy land which will drain freely.

When initial frosts had thawed we cut the greens by hand, moved holes, moved hoops and ropes, solid tined tees and continued with fairway aeration. The hedges were cut bu hand, this time working on the 7th tee hedge.

The problems we are having at the moment are ongoing through the winter, the cold spell of weather has brought out the badgers again which like scuffling in the turf to search for food. This time they have decided to have a dig on the 6th hole.

This is very frustrating, however nearer spring we can repair these areas, and with good growing conditions will recover reasonably well. We are going to treat the effected areas with merit turf, an insecticide, which should kill the chafer grubs that they are searching for.
On the positive side we have installed another drain into the 15th green, this time back right which was the only area left that was a problem with standing water. This was connected to a drain we installed a few weeks ago connecting to the 10th fairway drainage.

 

Sunshine, at last!

Yesterday afternoon and today has felt like spring is just around the corner, The sun has been shining down, the course is drying out and it feels.........warm. The team set out to check the greens and push any water off that remains from yesterdays thaw.

There are some really positive signs that all the hard work the team has put in over the winter installing drainage is having some effect. The 15th green would still be puddled this morning needing 2-3 staff to push water off the side of the green, the drain had removed the water from 3 low sections leaving only one puddle requiring one person to remove.

This is obviously still a problem so we aim to install another drain to this section of the green at the start of next week.
The 8th bunker and surrounding area that was drained at the end of last week is now dry, when installing the drain the team found an old clay pipe which has been linked into the out let and runs freely, we aren't sure where the clay pipe leads but is draining the land nether the less.

We finished off the drain in the 18th green side bunker, which was started before Christmas when the 18th fairway drains were installed. A section of pipe was connected and back filled with stone and sharp sand before the sand was re spread.

Solid tining of the fairways continues, with 14, 15 now completed and the start of 27th done, also some of the tees are being done whilst travelling around the course

Will has been working around the car park and 19th tee pruning shrubs and cutting hedges as travelling on the course has to be limited due to the ground conditions.

 

 

Yesterday the course was dry (for the current weather pattern), and we raked bunkers with our last demo machine from John Deere, hopefully we can order a new machine in the next week. We have been with out a bunker rake machine for about a year and the condition of the bunkers has declined over this period as we simply do not have the time to hand rake them often enough.

We also continued vertidraining fairways, 17th and 18th completed and half of 10th and 15th, we hoped to continue with this today but unfortunately there was heavy snow and rain fall over night which meant it was impossible to get out on the course.

With the course water logged we worked on making tee markers and hazard posts, serving machines and working through Health and Safety information.

At the end of the day the weather has improved significantly and melted 90% of the snow, however the fast melt has caused water logging. The drains recently installed are working well, so closure will hopefully be short term.

This week we are tidying the remainder of the drainage work, there is a small area of drainage we did on the 18th which was finished off. When the weather improves we have to turf areas of dead turf on the fairways that has been stood under water. We began solid tining the fairways with the weidenmann machine. We are using 18mm tines down to a depth of 200mm, we are using a setting that gives a moderate amount of heave to relieve compaction and open up the surface to aid water movement. We began around the drainage on the 17th hole, since this area has been drained we have seen significant improvement. Solid tining will help link the natural soil drainage to the installed drains. We hopefully will have the bottom 3 holes on the derwent course open tomorrow, it is still wet in a few areas, however it will be playable. Hedge cutting with the hand trimmer continues on the 3rd hole.

This morning the course had a covering of snow, just enough to close it until it melted around 10.30am. This afternoon when play did commence we had to put the pins on to temporary greens due to a severe frost under the snow cover holding the rain water from yesterdays showers.

Yesterday the 25th tee was shaped up ready for some final raking and levelling when conditions improve. This work will ensure the white tee on the 25th is playable for the coming year.



After the winds have eased we have a lot of clearing up to do as there are many branches and debris laid on the course. The team started collecting up the worst of the debris, next week we will blow the rest with the tornado tractor blower.

 

 

Tomorrow is the last day we will have the excavator so we drained some small bits on the 18th semi rough and around the 8th green side bunker,linking it in to the bunker tomorrow.

 





Wet, wild but the work continues

Overnight rain had made the course fairly sticky, the water had then frozen in patches on the greens and around the course. The forecast was reasonable throughout the morning so we opened the course on a number of temporary greens. We continued to tidy up the drainage work on holes 13 and 15, servicing the machinery, updating the health and safety policies and moving holes. We are having ongoing problems with badgers again, they seem to be especially bad when we have cold weather, they are creating damage looking for grubs and worms beneath the turf.

 At the other end of the course we had a break from drainage and used the excavator to re shape the back of the 25th tee, this area has sunk over time due to the severe slopes and the amount of soil used to build the tee originally.