leaves and lots of them

Recently the daily maintenance centres around leaves, they are coming down thick and fast. The windy conditions over the weekend have spread them all over the course which doesn't make life easy for the staff. We have to concentrate on clearing the greens every day, weather its to cut, roll or simply just to ensure they are playable for golfers for the days play. Following on from that we then have to start rounding them up from tees, fairways and semi rough before collection continues and is ongoing between all other tasks.

Before the recent rain we managed to get all the tees and some of the surrounds vertidrained. We had a demo tractor thanks to Russells ground care, we are looking to replace at least one of the tractors this winter. It worked well on the vertidrain, and overall was a great improvement on our current vehicles. The vertuidrain has now gone off for repair and service as there was a number of issues after a years use. When it returns I hope to continue to vertidrain a number of problem wet areas.

Overall the course is looking good and most surfaces are coping well as we start to get a feel of winter arriving. At the next opportunity we will spray the greens with a preventative fungicide to help reduce the chance of fusarium disease attacking the turf. We are now reducing cut frequencies as growth has slowed due to a number of cold days and nights. Hand cutting is not needed as yet, other than the front putting green, when ground conditions deteriorate then we would look to cut by hand to reduce compaction and wear around greens and tees.

Over the last few days we have had a spell of wet weather which has caused a few problems, generally the course is hold up well, it is the usual wet spots that we have had to put hoops out to prevent long term damage, please do not move the traffic management aids, ie hoops and ropes to access areas of the course that are restricted. We put these in place to ensure the course is in reasonable condition in the spring.

We have washed off sand from the heavily used bunkers, up to 10cm of sand can accumulate over the course of the year, if this is not removed can build up over time and eventually the face will have to be replaced. After the sand is washed off the bunker is left to drain off and the debris is then collected before the sand is redistributed and raked.

Neville Maw the hedge cutting contractor has been to cut all the hedges that can be done by machine, following this the remaining sections are cut by hand over the next month or so.

Now growth is slowing we will aim to start turfing the 16th ditch that was excavated over a month ago. Its good to see the ditch is already running water to the outlet.

Eddie Ruddock and his team are going to install another 4 winter tees next week, we are to trial half sized sections on two tees to evaluate weather this would be feasible for future winter tees.