Before any cutting could take place we had to clear all turf areas of debris, which, to be honest has been a daily task lately, cutting or not. The frustrating thing for green keepers is one positive always brings a negative, drying winds = debris, calm = dew, warmth = disease pressure, heat = watering, frost = grass damage, humid = heavy rain. As a greenkeeper there is one thing we cant change and that's the weather, so you have to learn to adapt, change and think ahead, taking opportunities when you have them, as at this time of the year it might be the only chance you get to do a certain task for maybe weeks. The fairways in particular needed brushing, to remove casts, and then all debris blowing from the surface. Following that we have managed to get all 27 fairways cut. Some may have noticed that I have changed some of the shapes slightly, after feed back from staff and golfers over the years we have made slight adjustments to help us maintain the course more easily, without loosing the aesthetics, in my opinion. As the year unfolds we will see a lot more definition to all areas, during winter its lost as cutting is far more irregular.
The trees have been planted between the 18th and the 27th holes, as mentioned before these will replace the bunkers that were filled in and give some separation to the 2 holes.
We have applied some spring fertiliser to the greens, a 6-5-11 plus Mg will aid root growth, strengthen the grass and improve colour going into the next month. We do not want to over stimulate growth at this time of year, as that would simply give weak 'leggy' plants that would be prone to frost and disease damage.
The irrigation contractors have done a great job so far and are reaching the end of the pipe installation there is less than 50m to install, near the range tee. There are still however a number of valve boxes to install, however they have completed most on holes 2-7, including all pipe connection holes. they have installed the tank fill pipe, with the tanks, and two pumping stations yet to be started. Fingers crossed the weather will stay on our side. The pipework near the 21stb and 24th greens was installed with little/ no mess, considering it was underwater a couple of weeks ago, and likely to be underwater in the next few days they have timed it well.
Following storm Doris the team has done well to clear all debris and return the course back to a good condition, we were fortunate not to suffer any major damage to trees or structures, just the odd branch to tidy from the course.
Machinery maintenance continues and hedge cutting is all but finished. Staining and repair of bins and benches has now started. We will be bringing them in off the courses in phases to dry, check and repair as necessary.
