This week we have made really good progress aerating the greens, as mentioned in previous posts this was long overdue, coupled with the fact that we have been having irrigation issues has meant we were struggling to get on to them to carry out any work. Now we have had some of the irrigation fixed, which I will cover more of in this blog, we have aerated the greens with cross tines. These are 150mm long and 12mm in diameter, the cross shape causes less disruption to the surface than a round solid tine of 12mm diameter, however with this being the only opportunity to carry out aeration this spring I felt the usual 8mm tines would not give sufficient benefits to the soil from a single or double pass operation. The greens have been done once on 1-18 and twice on 19-27 at a 50mm x 50mm spacing. Greens 1-18 will be done for the second time during Thursday and Friday and then top dressed for the 3rd time at the start of next week. This will then conclude the mini renovation works for the spring, with the next planned aeration in August where they will be hollow tined and solid tined to various depths. In between times there will be additional topdressings applied.
The tees on 1-18 have also been top dressed heavily to help fill in winter wear and divots that have not healed. They were brushed following the dressing to help work it in to the sward.
The irrigation contractor has now installed 4 new wires to replace faulty stretches of cable. This has not solved the issue we are having with deterioration and lack of signal to certain boxes as the 5th 21st and 24th green are still not responding to electrical signal. Putting more cable in could solve the problem, however this is expensive and is not guaranteed to solve the electrical problem completely.
Since the electrical fault we have since had a burst in the pipework near the 23rd green which is still to be fixe. the system would need draining to glue this joint.
19-27 bunkers are being edged this week and will be finished today. Unfortunately due to new restrictions the bunker sand which we have on order has been delayed for a few weeks due to transport regulations in and out of the particular quarry. This means the bunkers that are short of sand cant be topped up until we can receive the bunker sand.
