Wednesday, 22 April 2015

Busy times

The next couple of weeks are incredibly busy. We have had a lot of play on the course with the recent good weather. We have a couple of big competitions approaching and a lot of work to do to prepare the course. Added to this the forecast is for rain over the weekend which will kick growth off adding to our cutting routine. Up to now growth has been quite poor given all the sunshine. This is due to lack of moisture and very cold nights. Over the weekend the course is steadily greening up, so this week we are concentrating our efforts on cutting some grass to ensure the course is presented nicely even though there is little growth. The semi rough is patchy as the winter wear is still evident, where golfer foot traffic is less the semi has grown a few inches. All the semi rough will be cut this week to reduce the patchy growth. We have also been cutting the driving range, tees, surrounds, copses, pathway edges, fairways and cutting and grooming all the greens. The greens at this time of the year get some lateral growth from bent grasses, this can lead to bobbly greens later in the day as the lateral growth gets spiked up by foot traffic. To control this we groom the greens with the groomers on the John Deere mowers. The groomers are set flush to the surface of the green, this ensures that lateral growth is lifted, cut and removed. The greens are then cut to take off any uneven grass and leave a smooth finish. They are being cut at 3.5mm actual height of cut, as the fertiliser we applied last week has started to take affect and growth is much dense than a couple of weeks ago. 
This week we are busy edging, checking and topping bunkers. The team are doing a great job. 
We have also been fixing an irrigation burst on the 23rd. Typically where a join is in the pipe, to fix this we had to drain the system cut out the damaged section and replace by gluing in a extendable joint.
We also have held the annal divot evening where we had over 40 attend. There help appreciated and we divoted1-18 fairways and a few tees.

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About Me

Im the Head Greenkeeper at Malton and Norton Golf Club. I began my greenkeeping career at Malton and Norton Golf Club straight from school as an Assistant Greenkeeper. Wanting to climb the greenkeeping ladder I gained my NVQ level 2 and 3 at Askham Bryan College. I continued with my education gaining a HNC in golf course management and took the position of Deputy Head Greenkeeper at Malton and Norton Golf Club in 2005.In 2008 I was promoted to the position of Head Greenkeeper, leading a team of 6 hard working and dedicated Greenkeepers. Our aim is to continue to improve the condition of the course year on year maintaining our high reputation within the area.