Friday 18 September 2015

2 weeks since Autumn Renovations


Following a week of golfing on Scotland (aka a busman's holiday), I returned to work Monday and was very pleased to see how the greens had progressed since the hollow coring, scarifying and topdressing. 

Ryan and James held the fort very well in my absence. The golf course looked in good shape and we should head into autumn quite nicely.

 
The 2 photos above show the 2nd green. You can see how well the overseeding has done - the light green lines of new seed are quite evident. 

All we did was to pour some seed into a bucket and disperse it with our bare hands onto the greens before brushing in the topdressing. Successful overseeding is as simple as that - provide a gap for the seed to be sown in and then ensure the seed does not dry out.

We have alternated rolling the greens (to firm them up) with some walk mowing. The greens are now being cut less short but this is to ensure they now have a break from the stresses of summer. 

Mowing them constantly at a low height of cut cannot be sustained forever without some adversity. The main objective for us going into autumn and winter is that the greens are firm, dry and have excellent grass coverage. We believe that this objective is being achieved very well.

James has progressed well with his walk mowing of greens. He has had plenty of practice this week and is now getting into the rhythm of this form of greens mowing. 


We have walk mowed twice this week, the second time without collecting grass clippings due to the fact that we had applied an autumn fertiliser to the greens this week.


Next week we will start slitting greens to encourage good root development and we will give the greens a light topdressing to fill in any surface imperfections that have remained since the autumn renovation week. 

Have a great weekend and enjoy your golf!

Thursday 10 September 2015

Greens renovation


Last week was greens renovation week. We started on Tuesday (following bank holiday Monday) and we focused our efforts on greens 1, 2, 3, 7 and 9.

Greens 1, 2, 3 and 7 were scarified using the Graden and then topdressed, overseeded, brushed and rolled to smooth them out.


Green 9 was hollow cored, topdressed, scarified, overseeded, brushed and rolled. We have worked hard to improve the 9th green over the past 18 months. It has been aerated significantly to varying depths and has had a lot of thatch removed, with topdressing done to continually ameliorate the soil.

Now, we believe that this green will stand up very well to inclement weather and that is the main benefit that the members will see. Going into autumn and winter, we are pleased with how this green is.

On Wednesday of last week, we concentrated on greens 4 and 6. Both of these greens have been problematic over recent years. Both were hollow cored, topdressed, scarified, brushed, overseeded and rolled. This work alone took up most of Wednesday but these greens should perform better through autumn and winter.

Both Ryan and James worked really hard to help get this essential work completed and it was a tiring week for us all, given we had to get 5 days work done in 4 days including getting the course mowed and prepared for the end of the week.


The putting green has responded well to the renovation work. The photo above was taken 10 days after it was hollow cored, topdressed and scarified. Some liquid fertiliser has helped with the recovery. A couple of weak areas remain but I suspect they are compromised by tree roots. 

However, this work has been completed very well and to our satisfaction. We believe they should be nice and firm going into the winter period.

Have a great weekend and enjoy your golf!

Early season greens renovations

Hello (patient) members Well, turn of the new year, we greenkeepers were hoping that the weather would turn a corner and provide some much n...