A cold, dry spring

Firstly, I am pleased to be writing this post after (some) rainfall at the golf club. Perhaps we can avoid situations like the photo above just for a while at least!

It is fair to say that since the end of March, the weather has been a) extremely dry and b) unusually cold. April showers never materialised. Instead, we had a mix of cold, dry weather and, more recently, warm dry weather. Either way, it was dry. With this in mind, it demonstrates why it has been such a tough spring for getting grass growth and recovery.

As a quick recap, we had the following in the build up to Captain's Drive-In:

The course looked in decent shape and although we didn't achieve everything that we set out to achieve by the end of March, the greens were in really good shape. March gave us some rain, some warmish weather and it was all looking really good going into April.

So the week after Captain's Drive-In, we started our hollow coring (a little early for my liking, knowing what I know about unpredictable April weather). We had some great volunteer help and I must pass on my thanks to (in no particular order): Tom Frame, Len Dilnutt, Chris McHugh, Colin Riley, Barry Barlow, Ray Barnes, Mike Warbuton, John Newns and Wally Wiley.

James was able to get some experience using the Aercore and this will contribute towards him completing his NVQ.

Following the hollow coring, we applied 15-20 tonnes of sand to the greens. And we waited for rain to help wash it in. But it never arrived. Instead, the mercury dropped and then we started to get Northerly winds which are very cold. Air temperatures at night dropped to 3, 4, 5 degrees (meaning the soil temperature was about -1 to 0. Regardless of day temperatures, no growth (and certainly no recovery) will be observed with those night time temperatures.

Hence why the recovery from hollow coring took weeks. The situation unfolded like this:

• Liquid feeds were applied since it was way too cold to apply a granular fertiliser (the week after coring, we had light frosts). Liquid fertiliser gives slight growth but not enough for proper recovery 
• We had to use regular irrigation (due to lack of rain) to try and wash the topdressing sand into the greens. But irrigating with cold water onto cold soil just makes the soil even colder and slows down any chance of growth or recovery
• The seed we put down was waiting for warm, wet weather to germinate. That never arrived!
• Our greens rollers are currently awaiting repair so we had no proper way of smoothing out the surfaces after hollow coring
• The cold, drying winds caused the grass plant to just shut down and conserve its energy 
• More liquid fertiliser was applied but to little effect
• Most importantly, the poa (meadow grass) just sat dormant waiting for warm soil temperatures. Since our greens are a mix of poa and bent, the bent started to grow slightly but the poa didn't. This just produces an uneven surface and was exacerbated by the hollow coring work
• Following 2-3 weeks of cold weather, we started to get warmer, drier weather but with cold nights and North to North Easterly winds. So then we had turf that was drying out, trying to recover but still not growing

Hence why the photos above reflected the weather conditions. You can see the patchy growth and lack of recovery. April, by our recorded rainfall data, has been the driest month for 18 months at Poulton Park. That's why we needed to supplement irrigation water with localised hand watering!

To add insult to injury (the last moan I have, honest!), we have had to contend with leather jacket grubs feeding on grass roots and stifling recovery even more. In addition, our irrigation system has developed countless issues recently as it is old and inefficient so that has been another headache too!

The issue we have with leather jacket grubs is that in 2016, EU legislation forced the golf industry to withdraw use of the one insecticide that we had at our disposal to control leather jackets. Now, we don't have any proven products available to use to control them. So scenes like those below will ultimately become more commonplace on our greens in future.

The bottom photo (here on the 5th green) shows where the grubs have burrowed up through the coring holes and eaten away at the plant. Once this happens, you get the situation of dealing with grubs and also birds (crows, magpies) pecking away for the grubs - see the photo below on the 9th green.

All in all, I am not currently the bearer of great news save for the fact that the golf course is playing firm and fast. July playing conditions but with night temperatures of late indicative of January/February as demonstrated by the early morning frost on Wednesday this week.

I will wrap up by saying that things must improve as we get (if we get) a better mix of sunshine, showers and warmer night temperatures. Here's hoping.

Enjoy your weekend and enjoy your golf.

Greens vs Temporary Greens - Examining the differences

Above are 2 photos of the 3rd hole. The top photo shows the temporary green and the lower photo shows the regular green.

But why are they so different in playability? Let's look at the numbers.....

Greens

• Mowing: 5-7 times/week in spring, summer and autumn; 1-2 times/week in winter
• Mowing height: 3-5mm year round
• Topdressing: 50-60 tons/year
• Aeration: 20-30 operations/year (slitting, vert-draining, micro-tining, sarel rolling, coring, grooming, scarifying)
• Overseeding: 3-4 times/year with bent and fescue grasses
• Fertilising: 50-60kg/hectare using granular and liquid fertilisers
• Irrigation: as required
• Fungicide applications: as required - usually 3-4 times/year dependent upon disease pressure
• Average staff hours: 20-30 hours/week in summer, 15-20 hours/week in winter
• Hole changing and pitch mark repair: 2 times/week year round
• Greens area: 3200 square metres for 11 greens
• Approximate materials cost to maintain: £4000-£4500 excluding labour & machinery costs

Temporary greens

• Mowing: 1-2 times/week in spring, summer and autumn; as required in winter
• Mowing height: 9-12mm dependent upon season
• Topdressing: none
• Aeration: vert-draining (time permitting)
• Overseeding: none
• Fertilising: none (grass clippings are removed to control growth and encourage finer grasses)
• Irrigation: according to rainfall
• Fungicide applications: none
• Herbicide applications: 1-2 times/year
• Average staff hours: 5-6 hours/week in summer, as required in winter
• Hole changing: as required
• Temporary greens area: 550-600 square metres total
• Approximate materials cost to maintain: £100 excluding labour & machinery costs

The differences are obvious and quite staggering.

The reasons are mainly due to time allocation (greens are more important than temporary greens), size (greens can spread wear more easily than the tiny temporary greens) and budgetary input.

Temporary greens are used for frosty weather mainly. Otherwise, regular greens are in play.

In conclusion, temporary greens can be as good as regular greens if they were to be a similar size and could have the same time allocation and budgetary input. That would require the golf club to either increase membership fees or drive visitor revenues substantially.

Otherwise, temporary greens will remain a green mown out of the fairway.

Dry January?

We are approaching the end of January and, in the main, it hasn't been overly wet! Certainly, December was a whole lot wetter and not very Christmas like. We have taken the chance to verti drain the greens with pencil tines this month. This helps to maintain a dry surface and to allow any compacted soil to be broken up by the tines. The positive of this, from a golfing perspective, is that there is very little surface disruption. The larger tines have more impact upon play but occasionally, the larger tines are required.

We also continued with a few small projects this month. Given that we needed to place a mat near the 7th tee, we decided to work for a day on the hillside above the path. It has long been felt by many members that some of the tree branches interfered with tee shots off the 7th white tee.

Therefore, we chopped back the scrub and removed some of the offending trees and branches to create more room on this hillside. This has now opened up the driving line and created more of an open aspect to this whole area. For a day's work, it has really been quite effective and the cost to the golf club has been a bit of hard graft and some 2 stroke mix!!! In doing this work, it will afford us a good few years for any regrowth to creep back down the hillside - that is if the regrowth gets the chance!!

What you might have seen on the 7th tee is some disease - the dreaded fusarium. You can see the white fungal mycelium that has matted into the turf. This has taken hold here mainly because of mild, wet weather and heavy dew formations. The issue here is one of shade. The total lack of sunlight prevents the turf from ever drying out. The lack of wind also contributes to a continually soaked grass leaf and so the disease proliferates. Without sunlight getting to this tee, it will always be compromised in this way. Hence you now see turf that shows disease scarring and a loss of turf cover. We will oversee these patches towards spring but this will not eradicate this problem.

The chance was taken a week ago to spray the greens with a liquid iron product. This hardens the grass and supports it against disease pressure. It also gives the turf a bit of colour. Likewise, iron deficiency in humans represents itself in poor skin colour. That is why the doctor will prescribe a nice steak - the iron contained will encourage more red blood cells. What a blog this is - every post is an education!!!

We hope you are enjoying the fairly continual play on our regular greens. Getting through January without too much fusarium disease scars is usually a good sign and so far, we have done well. The surfaces have excellent grass coverage and look pretty good as we head into February. They are obviously not rolling at 11 on the stimpmeter but that is to be expected in winter, particularly with inclement weather that can cause a variety of issues. Nevertheless, they are not too bad at all! So signing off on a positive, here's a photo of the 6th green in all it's winter splendour!

Have a good weekend and enjoy your golf!

Merry Christmas one and all

Well, we haven't posted for a while now. The blogger app has disappeared from my phone - therefore catching a spare minute in between baby duties is rare!

We have managed to get the winter tee mats out now. They are a marmite issue with golfers and whilst not everyone's cup of tea, they give the tees a bit of a break from divots. We hope to get the last permanent mat installed by the 6th tee soon. The one above was installed at the 1st in November. It looks really good and should make a nice addition to what has become a truly transformed 1st tee area since last winter.

A good few trees have been removed recently. The ones above, right of the 11th tee, will improve the line of sight from the 2nd tee to the 2nd green. Tree encroachment often occurs gradually and before long, only half a tee is usable for golfers, increasing wear on that part of the tee and making the other part off the tee redundant. Hence the regular concentrated wear patterns to the left and centre of the 2nd tee during the main season.

The line of trees taken out of the right side of the 3rd hole were, again, part of our course masterplan to improve safety considerations to the housing left of the 3rd. But they also provide more of a direct golfing line into the approach and green. Such a tough hole, with trees galore, can be a bit of a chore sometimes without dozens of trees in the way of the approach shot into this green.

The stump grinder was brought in a week ago and about 40 stumps were removed. Each of these areas will be re-grassed in the run up to spring. They all need to consolidate first with some rain and compacting. Then we can re-level these areas.

With such a wet 2016, it is interesting to note some of the wet areas on the golf course. All of these areas have sat wet all year and since the horrendously wet winter of last year. You will notice them as you play. The area above behind the 7th tee and the areas below on the 8th and 9th holes.

The one thing these areas all have in common? All of them sit in shade all day long because they are north facing. Interestingly, all of them are close to trees. So the myth that tree roots absorb water is something of a nonsense. These areas will always sit wet so long as they get no sun or wind to dry them out. Trees serve a limited purpose on golf courses. If turf is suffering due to tree issues then tree removal is the best solution.

Recently, the greens were top dressed again and they were aerated with our slitter. The continued aeration and topdressing will continue to maintain dry, firm greens surfaces. Our greens should, without too much heavy rain, withstand winter golf and hopefully negate the need for temporary greens which will never be anything better than a hole in a fairway.

The greens are looking fairly good considering we are now officially in winter. They are not lightning fast but that cannot be expected at this time of the year. At least we have the opportunity to keep them in play for as much as possible. 

The leaves are nearly all gone now. A few odd piles remain but those that affected play the most are now gone. We might be able to start some winter work now!!!!

That is all for this year. Please enjoy your Christmas and New Year. All the best to each and every one of our members!

Frost - a great article

https://www.pitchcare.com/magazine/frosty-the-no-man.html

Repairing pitch marks - a great video

Thanks to David Moreno, Assistant Greenkeeper at Mendip Spring Golf Club, Bristol.

USGA Turf Minute: Should All Bunkers Play The Same?

Poulton Park Golf Club - Drone

November Rain

The last 2 weeks has seen a gradual shift towards winter. Leaves are now falling and we have had some cold mornings with leaf frosts. It's the time of year when we are carrying out a variety of tasks that best maximise the weather and ground conditions.

We have started to verti drain the greens. This gives us the opportunity to loosen any soil that has become too compact over the last few months. For us, it is important that the greens remain healthy over the coming months but also that they remain dry, firm and playability is not compromised.

We will do our best, weather permitting, to maintain play on regular greens throughout the winter. Frost and persistent heavy rain might prevent this at times but we hope that for the most part they will remain in play. The recent mild, wet weather has encouraged some red thread disease onto some of the greens.

This is evident particularly on the 3rd green. This green, given its thatch content above a very free draining sand, will be particularly susceptible to red thread. The disease is just a blight. It doesn't result in actual turf loss. It is common where nutrient levels, mainly Nitrogen, are low. Hence a very free draining sand will tend to leach nutrients more quickly. Surface thatch will harbour the disease pathogen. A liquid fertiliser was applied to the worst affected greens to discourage the disease.

We have continued to plug away (pun intended - see what i did there??!!) at the 8th green. We use the hole cutter to remove the heavy soil as seen above. This is just not capable of draining any real quantities of rainfall. All that happens is that the surface puddles because the rainfall exceeds the drainage rate. Golf greens built on heavy clay soils are destined to fail at some point with the UK climate. They simply hold water in wet weather.

The plugs are replaced with a sandy root zone. This is a painfully slow process that we turn to with a spare 30 minutes here and there. It will not provide a quick fix to wet weather but it is infinitely cheaper than a complete green reconstruction (£17-19000). This green will always be compromised until funds are available to rebuild it. In the meantime, what we are doing will not hurt and in a small way will improve this green.

The annual leaf drop has begun and we are appreciative of the volunteer assistance to help with leaf collection. Ray, Barry, Wally, John Newns, Dave Asprey, Tom and Len have all given their time to the cause. Many thanks to you guys for your help.

It is a big task and although it is necessary, the sheer quantity of leaves from trees causes us a headache. When many golf clubs have already started winter project work (drainage, tee/bunker/path construction etc), we have to address a huge leaf clear up operation. Precious time is lost simply with dealing with leaves. At this time of the year, every playing surface on the golf course is compromised because leaves have to be collected.

Talking of leaves, we have taken the opportunity to tidy the woodland to the left of the 3rd carry so that we can use this area as a dumping ground for leaves. Here they will rot down nicely out of the way of play. This area will, in time, look much more open and presentable. This work is inexpensive to execute and gives us the opportunity to improve the perimeters of the golf course over the winter.

Our winter topdressing continues. The greens are protected with a fungicide and this enables us to continue light topdressing on our greens to keep them firm, smooth and dry. This is essential if we are to maintain year round play on our greens. At certain times during the week, one green will be out of play for half an hour or so (a temporary green will be in play) until the green has been top dressed and brushed in. These greens will be back in play immediately following this operation.

A final thank you, before signing off, to John Newns for his fantastic divot bag holder that is located by the 1st tee. It looks amazing and hopefully is appreciated by all the members. Please use the divot mix to help maintain the fairways.

We hope you have patience with the recent wet weather. Bear in mind that other golf clubs will also be affected by heavy rain and frosts too. Nothing lasts forever, even cold November rain.

Have a great weekend and enjoy your golf.

A busy autumn

It has been a while since the last post so here is an extended blog to catch up on various work and areas of improvement.

Recently, a small group of volunteers (Captain, Vice Captain, Phil Lockett and Jeff Perkin) set about clearing the ditch to the left of the 4th hole. A great amount of clearing was achieved on the Saturday morning and this work will continue until this ditch has been fully cleared and looks tidier. We mustn't forget the dedicated work of volunteers at the golf club and it is down to many that the golf club is operated on this basis.

Our association with Mark, the chainsaw instructor, has continued this year and he recently held a tree felling course which resulted in the removal of several large trees adjacent to the 14th tee. These poplars were causing 2 issues; the first being a playability issue in that they were encroaching to such an extent that only the left half of this tee was usable by golfers to play down the hole. This was evident by the divot pattern on the tee. The second issue is that the poplars were blocking light into the 6th green and their roots are just destructive, even to the extent that new offshoots were appearing through the front of the 14th tee. Such work is necessary to retain the integrity of the hole from a golfing point of view above all else and it continues what has been laid out in the course improvement plan.

The chipping green area has (finally!! - apologies Freddy) had a bit of a makeover in the last week. Both bunkers have been edged to give them more definition. They just need a bit more bunker sand and then they should be perfect for practising those cute bunker shots. This practise area is now in decent nick and we hope to keep it looking good as best as we can.

Following the autumn renovation works (scarifying, hollow coring, topdressing), the greens have recovered well and they should stand up well to winter play and weather. They are firming up nicely and should remain dry this winter, save for any constant wet weather. Let's hope that last winter was a bad one out of the way and one we won't see again for a good few years! The photo above shows a tine hole that has been chewed away by leatherjacket grubs which are newly laid in the soil. The insecticide that we used to use to control them has since been withdrawn from the market due to it's carcinogenic links. Until we find a proven alternative, we will have to use other methods of controlling the damage caused by leatherjackets.

We recently trialled a soil conditioner product on a few greens that had caused a few problems due to casting earthworms. Their worm casts were not always welcome, particularly when preparing the greens for play. However, the product that we used has had a great effect and it contains tea seed saponins which are a worm irritant, as the photo above demonstrates! The intention is not to stop worm activity entirely. Worms are nature's natural soil aerators and they are important for our soil. We just need to strike a balance between their benefits and their limitations.

The greens were sprayed with a preventative fungicide last week, Fusarium activity was becoming evident and the mild conditions of late were perfect for it's spread. The fungicide will give the greens protection for the next month and will allow us to carry out aeration work on the greens without any further disease activity. With older chemicals being removed from the market, it will be that bit more challenging in the future to have such a wide choice of products to use for control of weeds, pests and diseases. Therefore it is imperative that we look to methods that include aeration, topdressing and judicious use of fertilisers to maintain good playing surfaces.

As we head into late autumn and early winter, the golf course will start to change with the seasons. Leaves will fall and days will be shorter with less sunlight. It is inevitable that the weather will deteriorate in one way or another too. Our thoughts now move towards winter projects which will hopefully improve the golf course but at the same time will be executed with less disruption and cost than in the previous 2 years.

We hope that these changes will be welcomed by members and visitors. It is important to remember that any changes are made for the benefit of the golf course and that the intention is not to destroy the foundations of the golf club. We acknowledge that many founder members were vital to the creation and development of this golf club. However, we are just trying to modify and tweak the golf course so that it remains relevant in a challenging market, and that it continues to appeal to a wide range of golfers. 9 hole golf courses could prove to be the future of golf, particularly with the demands on peoples' time these days. Poulton Park Golf Club really is moving in the right direction and it has the potential to be a cracking golf course.

Have a good weekend and enjoy your golf!