Course
Report – August 2018
It’s been quite an eventful month, although the dry weather has generally
continued with only 38mm of rainfall during July. Thankfully the drought has
been broken with heavy bursts of rain. The only problem the humidity increased
to levels which initiated very isolated and severe thunderstorms. One of which
hit the course on the 27th July with devastating consequences. The
storm only last around 30 minutes however its intensity caused widespread
damage. Footage of the storm can be found on the clubs Facebook page. Numerous lightening strikes rolled across the
course with at least 3 trees being struck and over 30 trees being damaged, not
to mention the debris that littered the course. The heavy rain which fell, due
to the firm ground conditions, stood very quickly. These bursts of rainfall
have done little good. Beneath the surface the soil conditions are very dry in
places, the water that falls only reaches the top few centimeters, which is soon
evaporated. The damage of the storm is still evident on the course and we are
collecting as and when time is available. The biggest damage came to the 6th,
12th and 21st holes. Three large trees were significantly
damaged on the 6th, thank you to 3 members in particular, who spent
2 days helping cut up and clear those trees, I won’t mention their names but
without them we would still be faced with the task of removing them. The 12th
was a complete disaster zone after a group of poplars were hit, one of them
fell onto the course damaging a few of our trees. Thankfully these trees are
owned and being cleared by Simon Howards team of gardeners, albeit slowly due
to the amount of other damage his property has suffered. Most of the in-play
areas have been tidied, with only the damage in the long rough to clear. The 21st
had another poplar struck by lightning, blowing off the top of the tree, other
poplars near the 24th green were also severely damaged. There are
still a number of trees roped off so please be aware of these when playing and
do not put yourself in danger until they are made safe.
The irrigation system has been crucial in getting us through this drought
period, without it I’m confident we would have lost a few of the greens, at
times the irrigation system was running 24 hours a day to keep turf alive. We
only need to look at fairways across the course to see how badly effected we
have been, these will take time to regrow. When we installed the system, I
would have never had thought that the weakest factor would be the water supply,
thankfully we got through this drought with pumping from other sources on the
course. In the future we could take more proactive measures to aid the storage
of water, such as ditch clearance and pond enlargement.
On the course we have made a great start to our greens renovations. Holes
1-9 have been closed for the w/c 30th July. During this period, we
have tined the greens using 12mm cross tines penetrating 250mm into the root zone.
This was followed by 8mm hollow tines to a depth of 125mm. This process aids
aeration around the roots and increases the drainage capability. Around 10
tonne of sand was worked into the holes. Finally, we followed up by rolling and
fertilisation to ensure we get the surfaces back in good condition as soon as
we can. After the initial tining the greens will take a while to return to
normal speed and trueness, however after a week we have seen full recovery.
Tining of 10-18 greens was carried out the following week with 1-9
reopened to reduce disruption to golf.
During the second week of maintenance we used a GKB Sandfiller, this machine
can inject sand directly into the profile instead of applying it to the surface,
as well as removing thatch, this also is a lot faster than hollow tining. This
will dramatically reduce disruption to the course, along with reducing the
organic matter content in the upper profile. Our aim was to complete 19-27
greens also during the second week. However, work on 19-27 greens had to
be postponed due to time and disruption, we will start them and a few poorer
areas in a maintenance period commencing on the 22nd August and will be
completed with the GKB Sandfiller w/c 10th September. Once all the
greens are complete regular micro tining will take place using 8mm tines which
will not affect the playability of the greens into the autumn.
Many of you may wonder why we tine the greens right in the middle of the
playing season, to be honest the playing
season is a 12 month cycle nowadays. So there is no 'good' time to do it from
that point of view. We feel this time of the year is the ideal time as
recovery is the quickest it can be. The rest of
the year maintenance is planned to be of 'minimal' disruption, however it is
ongoing throughout the year. We have had a lot of compliments regarding the
course and the greens over the last few years and it all boils down to the work
that is put in to them to get them that way and make play on them possible for
a 12 month season. Other factors such as drainage would increase playability
further and is in the strategic plan.
Due to the treat of Anthracnose at this time of the year we have applied
a preventative fungicide before tining. Straight after tining and sanding has
been completed another application of fungicide will be applied to reduce the
risk of any disease outbreaks. Worm casts have also started to become an issue,
these are very difficult to deal with as there are still no chemicals to
suppress activity that are cost effective. We will continue to apply sand and
iron to try and deter them.
Selective herbicide application for weeds had to be put on hold during
the Spring as the ground conditions started to get too dry, this will
recommence when the weather turns wetter towards the end of August and into
September.
All long
rough will start to be cut and collected again during the start of September
There have been several wasp and bee nests appear on the course in the
last month which have been treated as soon as they appear. Should any member
find one please notify myself, one of the team or someone in the pro shop or
office so it can be dealt with, thank you.
2017 2018
January - 23mm January
- 58mm
February - 52mm February
- 30mm
March - 41mm March
- 75mm
April - 18mm April
- 40mm
May - 41mm May
- 26mm
June - 66mm June
- 6mm
July - 112mm July
- 38mm
August - 82mm August
-
September - 68mm September
-
October - 55mm October
-
November- 52mm November
-
December- 45mm December-
2017 Rainfall - 655mm 2018
Rainfall – 273mm
Average annual rainfall- 620mm
Richard Jacques
Head
Greenkeeper
