Summer report - 2024

Greetings from the day after another downpour!

Well, it's been one of those years again. Not many warm, sunny days to be thankful for. That said, there have been plenty of things going on out on the golf course.

Firstly, many thanks to the volunteers for strimming ditches, hedge cutting, dredging ponds, general tidying etc. It's much appreciated by everyone concerned at the golf club and for sure, there's much that gets done unseen by many (working) members.

Michael and Morgan are now settling into their respective positions. Well done to Morgan for recently graduating from Myerscough College with a Diploma in Golf Management. Michael is currently finishing his NVQ Level 3 in Greenkeeping and he should be finished with that by November.

You should all have seen the drainage works that have recently been completed on holes 2 and 5. After last night's heavy rain (approximately 1 inch/25mm), both areas have performed well. This water has been captured so that is very positive to see. We believe the timing of these works, despite it being summer, was excellent. Ground conditions were ideal, no residual damage to the course was made, the contractors worked speedily and without friction, and golfers weren't inconvenienced for more than 7 days out of the 10 days that we allocated.

The drainage channels have been seeded and that seed is now coming through. We have fertilised the entire carry of the 2nd as that sat wet for much of 2023 into Spring 2024. The fertiliser should recover these wear areas and boost the new seed too. We will also carry out similar fertilising to the 5th.

With 3 greens staff (as opposed to 2 previously), it's very beneficial to both us and the members now. The additional service/value derived is now noticeable to us. An example is yesterday (Monday) when we managed to get greens, tees, fairways, approaches and surrounds cut. Pluzs the tees were seeded, topdressed, dragmat in sand as well as raking bunkers. The opportunity to get all closely mown areas cut in 1 day is now realisable. That consistency helps to elevate the standards and continue to raise the bar. 

The green fees in June alone indicate that the golf club continues to do well as a business and it's great to see so many new faces out on the golf course.

One of the challenges with so much play is the amount of wear (divots) from tees. Some have taken a bit of a hiding. Rest assured that they are being regularly seeded and divoted alongside planned fertiliser applications. It would be great if new seed would grow instantly but that's not realistic. Hence the wear vs re-growth will always be weighted towards the wear (divots). We have already discussed increasing the size of some tees (mainly some of the par 3s) so that we can accommodate more play with some contingency.

I think (hope!) that we seemed to have found something of a compromise in our fairway mowing height. For years, we've been working to refine the fairways. The problem has been, and still is on a few, agricultural quality ryegrass that remains from when the land was used purely for farmland. There's a lot of work to discourage this ryegrass because it is so resilient and difficult to eradicate. So the endless harrowing, scarifying, low mowing, grass clipping removal and subsequent fertiliser application has helped to improve them. It's definitely a process and not yet fully complete but they are certainly much improved.

With that in mind, we continue to mow the 4th and 7th fairways as one. What used to be divided by some 50 poplar trees is now a much more aesthetically pleasing and playable 2 holes. We also have another mitigation measure in place to counter wayward tee shots off the 4th/13th tees. By growing the rough in on the left hand side and joining the fairways, we now have a genuine bail-out to the right on the 4th hole.

Yesterday, we took the opportunity to start widening the fairway on the right side of the 8th hole. This is obviously where some members drive to on the 8th so we will continue to improve this area. It will take some tweaking to get the shape aesthetically right but in time (like with the 4th/7th), these areas will grow in as required.

The fresh clean sand in the bunkers on 1 and 2 now seems to have consolidated, providing better playability and better consistency. I think that looking back, the collateral damage from the Summer/Autumn/Winter of 2023-24 has been silt contamination of bunker sand. There is no way that most golf clubs didn't suffer in one way or another from all that rain. In our case, the course generally came out of last year largely quite well. But it is noticeable that some bunkers have a dirtier sand colour and that is silt contamination washed out of the soil.

We are looking to install, over several years, a newer generation bunker liner into all the bunkers. The idea is that the liner will prevent most of that 'wash down', thus leaving the sand cleaner for longer. I'm currently gathering prices and availability for this work. It's not decided yet but it is a serious consideration now. Other golf clubs have already started down this route for exactly the same reasons and the results are very good - certainly from those golf clubs I've visited to see this installation.

Greens-wise, they are continuing to perform well. We would ideally have liked to do more verti-cutting and light topdressing this Spring but several incidences have disrupted our plans. It's not that the greens are soft. Moreover, it's that with sand based/USGA greens, they will always produce seasonal organic matter (thatch) by virtue of being a sandy soil. Hence the need to control this excess accumulation with verti cutting and sand top dressing to dilute it. A recent soil test & report has demonstrated further improvement over the last 12 months, even with all of that rain. This shows that our management programme is working very well.

As we head into late Summer, we have a few little projects to be doing which should address a few other areas on the golf course. Things like path spraying, occasional tree removal and then the rotten sleepers to remove on the 7th yellow/red tee.

Enjoy your golf and let's hope for a nice warm spell soon

Ben Allen