December the 24th proved to be an interesting arrival at South Essex as the entrance area and road were flooded so deeply that staff were unable drive down to the club, in the end many of the staff were sent home  and the course was closed. It was a few hours before the first vehicles were able to drive down after the rain eased and the flooding lowered sufficiently.

 

January is proving to be another very wet but mild month with many areas in the country experiencing swollen rivers and flooded homes. On the course the rain continues to cause problems with playing areas, it is important that we help the excess water away from the course and the ditches play a big part in this, so where required we remove any blockages to aid the water flow.

 

 cleared ditch 8th heron

 

Many of the bunkers and greens are so saturated with water that they pond up quickly and we have been keeping our pump busy  but at the moment we are not winning the battle as the rains continue

 flooding 9th heron

 pumping out 9th heron

 

The very first areas of gorse that we planted about 7 years ago  near the 5th and 6th tees heron have been pruned back to stop them getting tall and leggy and encourage fresh new growth .

 

During the wet weather we have been cleaning and painting in the maintenance building to help keep the area organised clean and tidy

 sweeping up

 painting the demarcation lines

 floor painting

 painting tool storage wall

 painting toilet area

 

Golf balls are hard and can do serious damage when they hit an object as seen in the photo taken on the driving range, would you want to be hit by a ball at 100 yards or any other distance. Please remember that  greenstaff are people and can be damaged by your ball when working on the course.

 

Finally a view of the 7th vixen

Happy New Year to our blog readers, I hope you enjoy a great year playing golf at South Essex and the weather is good for golfers and green keeping. Those who have visited the course in December will have noticed the damaged done to the lawns and turf areas around the clubhouse with damage done by moles. Sean Eady was successful in removing two moles in these areas and we will be trying to control those out on the course,although they are fascinating animals there mole runs and hills are not conducive to good turf management.

We would like to thank  Rodger Horne the Seniors Captain and Seniors section for inviting the Green Staff to there Turkey Trot, we enjoyed the golf and meal and appreciated the wine given to us for our work on the course, Thank You

During the autumn and winter months especially on frosty and windy days other tasks have to be carried out, like removing leaves and debris that has fallen onto the green surfaces, trimming trees that are in the line of shots off the tees, and trimming back the shrub around the clubhouse and starters hut

The Path from the 9th green Hawk has been renovated by first installing a catchment drain on the slope to the right of the path as surface water was running down and across the path, this will be piped and stone  and exit into the pond, road plannings were placed onto the path and then wacker plated in

During this continued wet weather it is very important that we  all adher to keeping to the direction of using the traffic control of post and ropes around the course as this is to protect the main walk off areas for the coming playing season and this will allow these worn areas to then recover, unfortunately there are those who chose to ignore these controls and will  pull there trolleys over the ropes, up the tee banks and walk close to greens evident by the amount of trolley wheel marks that we see. We do have signs on the main paths as you start your round as a reminder, your help will give us a better golf course thanks for your help