"There's not a lot you can do when the weather is like this, is there ?"

Happy New Year everyone from a winter wonderland

A familiar comment we hear is that of the blog title; "there's not much you can do when it's like this, is there?". To which the reply is "true, however, we are doing X, Y and Z".

So what are those things? Let's look at a few projects and tasks that we have been doing recently.

Firstly, debris (branches, twigs etc) has obviously fallen a lot recently and so these areas are being tidied up. John Mercer and Tom Frame put in a shift on Tuesday morning, assisting with clearing up the area under the Willow trees, left of 5th fairway. Then they set to work with a fire, burning the brash from said work.

Related to this, we took the pole saw out on Monday and carried out some light pruning of branches on the large Oak tree directly behind the 8th green. As the photos attest, this tree creates a fair bit of shade in the middle to back of this green. This can contribute to poorer growth because with shade comes colder conditions, less sunlight, less density of growth and a weaker surface. 

So the object of this exercise was merely to create more gaps for sunlight to pass through to the green, breaking up those shadows. Remember this - once that Oak tree is in full leaf, those gaps of sunlight are reduced markedly, hence the need to act now. Often, greenkeepers will do jobs like this not because they dislike trees per se but more that small 'wins' like this can often contribute to better playing surfaces.

Also going on at the moment is refreshing the tee markers. These have been brought in, dried out in a warm office, sanded down and then repainted. It's nice to get a smooth finish and take time to get the detail right in the painting. They are now looking sharp and ready to go back out in Spring.

Machinery maintenance, often an overlooked part of our work, is given more attention in the winter months because it coincides with less daylight hours and more inclement weather. Dark mornings or days of heavy rain often enable this work to be done with suitable justification. 

We recently cut the entire golf course in the second full week of January. This presented the course better and restored some much needed definition for members. It actually looked more like a golf course at the end of that week. The downside was mowers (in particular the fairway mower) cutting grass but with worm casts visible. The effects of this lead to a dulling of the cutting cylinders. Having our own grinding equipment is a superb asset at this time of year. 

We power wash the units, strip them down and then mount them on the grinders to restore the sharp edges of the blades. This then enables us to get back out with those mowers and actually cut grass again rather than trying to cut grass with dull blades.

Another part of our machinery maintenance is parts replacement. As you can see from the photos below, these tees mower units have had new parts fitted that form part of the rear roller brushes. These brushes clean the rear rollers following mowing of tees, surrounds etc and help to keep those rollers collecting worm cast debris, grass etc which can then lead to roller bearing degradation. So we have replaced pulleys, belts, bearings, brush shafts etc in a quieter period to enable us to be ready when growth resumes in Spring.

I've also been in touch with an external contractor, organising quotes for drainage project work and a few other course improvements in the pipeline. The anticipation is that more settled weather and ground conditions will enable us to finally execute some of these planned improvements.

We'll get a winter fertiliser out on the greens once the snow and thaw occurs. This is more of a nutrient support product rather than a fertiliser designed to specifically push growth. We're replenishing the soil nutrient pool - often something that affects USGA greens in winter because the sandy soils leach nutrient more quickly than soil or clay based soils.

Granted, whilst it may appear that "there's not much we can do when it's like this" there are in fact tasks that are specifically planned or targeted around weather like this. 

Hopefully, that's a bit of insight into the perhaps unseen part of our work as we understand that not all golfers can be aware of every last thing we do.

All the best

Ben

2023 in review

Happy New Year members

I write this blog as we've just passed through a miserable 6 months from July to December. It's been as demoralising for greenkeepers as it has for golfers. 

The disruption from the incessant rain has impacted the club's plans to carry out, ironically, much needed drainage work around the 5th green. This project has been planned for many months but the fact that this project work is at the farthest end of the golf course is even more frustrating. 

Even small breaks in the weather don't particularly help because getting all that way with any sort of digging or trenching equipment as well as with tractors and trailers.

For context, the rainfall data, which is recorded daily, is provided below:

Month                                Rainfall (mm)           Number of rain days 

Jan                                           107                                    16

Feb                                              7                                      4

Mar                                         107                                     19

Apr                                           46                                       8

May                                          25                                       5

Jun                                            40                                       7

July                                         179                                     20

Aug                                           88                                       9

Sep                                            78                                     10

Oct                                           144                                    16    

Nov                                          138                                    17

Dec                                           152                                    24

TOTAL                                   1111                                   155

It's been a bit disappointing to be honest and that's an understatement. Granted, there have been periods of dry weather in February, April, May and June so it's not been a complete washout. 

If you scroll back to my earlier blogs, you'll see a really wet July in 2016, similar to July 2023. I realise it's no consolation but these weather cycles do occur.

That said, if we look back over previous winters, as the photos below attest, we've had this type of weather before:

2021 (above)

2019 (above)

2017 (above)

I remember distinctly a few horrendous winters in 2006, 2009, 2010 when I worked in Nottinghamshire. Terribly wet but typically British too. Conversely, the summer of 1976 when I was born was a proper heatwave summer. Cycles of weather come and go.

Hopefully, as I write, the forecast shows a dry 2 weeks ahead of us so let's look forward to better days.

Autumn provided the annual leaf drop and it wrung itself out until the end of December.

Greens have held up well despite the wet weather. We've had to spike (verti drain), sarel roll (shallow surface spike) and apply a product called Rocastem, which opens up the pore spaces in the soil, to keep the greens as playable as possible for members. They've done very well and it's very satisfying to see how they have developed.

It's critical to keep overseeding with bentgrasses to ensure the greens are more resilient and more disease resistant. We wanted to head into 2024 with good grass coverage, density and minimal disease scarring and I think we've achieved that. Granted, 2 fungicides have been sprayed; in late September and then also at the start of November. The saving grace, if you could call it that, is that disease has struggled to proliferate is because of the consistent rain, ironically.

Fusarium is prevalent in high humidity, mild weather and with heavy morning dew. Disease spores spread over the dew so rainfall has been a buffer to that disease spread.

Tees were all fertilised, verti drained, divoted and cut prior to closing them for the winter. They are looking well so please refrain from playing off them until Spring.

Tee markers have been sanded and repainted.

Our machinery servicing is up to date. Oil & filter changes, done twice per year, have been done. All mower cylinders that needed re-grinding (sharpening) have all been completed. We continue to ensure that any worn parts are replaced. Currently, we are just finishing replacing bearings, belts and pulleys that drive the rear roller brush assemblies on our Tees 3250 mower.

It is pleasing that we continue to keep the machinery in good working order. Perhaps it is an area of our work that goes unnoticed by 95% of members but it is done mainly by us and it is important that the machinery is looked after. 25% of the greens' budget is allocated to machinery repair, servicing and parts replacement.

We managed, eventually, to restore some definition to the golf course by cutting tees, fairways and most rough in the week leading up to Christmas. It was long overdue but the ground conditions prior had prevented us from getting heavy machinery such as the Fairway and Rough mowers out. The weather since has been so mild and wet that growth continues. We'll hopefully get some more mowing done in the next few weeks with a nicer forecast.

The Putting Green (above), has had much work done to it over the years. We continue to integrate sandy soil into this green whenever we change the holes. I estimate that several hundred old hole positions have been filled up with sandy soil over the years. Now, that work is paying dividends. Rarely do we see standing water on this green anymore. 

Whilst it will never play like the golf course greens (due to being a clay push up green vs USGA greens on the gof course), we're still keen to get it as playable as possible during adverse weather. Hence, you will see regular instances like this where the plugs are ameliorated with the sandy soil. A couple of weeks later, they tend to settle in. The compromise in the short term is worth it for better long term results.

The directors are committed to drainage work to improve wet areas of the golf course. It will be carried out but when exactly that is, we just don't know. I know many golf clubs have had to postpone course project work in late 2023 as the weather has been just too much to get heavy plant equipment out.

In the meantime, best wishes for 2024.

Ben Allen