Its been only 3 days since the putting greens were completed and they are already improving, the sand on the surface has reduced and the holes are beginning to close. The work we have done this year, as I have already mentioned, is to create less disturbance for a quicker recovery. Looking at past data and information which can be found on the blog, recovery using larger tines and more sand was anywhere from 2 to 3 weeks. I'm hoping for recovery this year around 10-14 days. During the last 9 years we have made great improvements to the greens, this has come through the work that has been done over that time. Initially we hit the greens hard trying to remove thatch and improve the soil structure, over the years slowly reducing the severity of the work and improving techniques to allow the greens to be more playable. Now we are at a stage where we are happy with the annual thatch balance (gain v removal) work can be less intense, we will never stop doing the work as we need to keep the balance of thatch build up in our favour. We have still got areas where we need improve the greens, the most important is drainage, as wet greens will always be prone to poor grass quality and growth. Installing drains or changing the greens structure will hopefully be the next step.
While the verti drain is on the tractor and we cant continue with any greens until Monday, work started on deep tining the tees, mainly on 10-18. This is again to relieve compaction and increase drainage. Other tees will be done during the maintenance weeks.
The course is still growing at a rapid rate due to rain which has fallen nearly every day this week, unbelievable making July the wettest month of the year so far with 109mm to date with 3 days still to go in July. June was previously the wettest month of the year with 66mm. There is no wonder the grass is growing, the two hottest months of the year (June and July) we have more rain than the previous 5 'winter/spring' months combined, below is the data for 2016 and 2017 to date.
2016 2017
January - 78mm January
- 23mm
February - 52mm February
- 52mm
March - 78mm March
- 41mm
April - 63mm April
- 18mm
May - 28mm May
- 41mm
June - 56mm June
- 66mm
July - 33mm July - 109mm
August - 71mm August
-
September - 32mm September
-
October - 38mm October
-
November- 65mm November
-
December- 34mm December-
2016 Rainfall - 628mm 2017
Rainfall – 350mm
Average annual rainfall- 620mm
Most areas of the course are still in great condition, however the usual wet areas are getting a little muddy with a little turf damage through continuous cutting and traffic damage, we have placed some hoops out to limit damage further.
