The continued mild wet weather has made decision making  very difficult as the grass continues to grow but ground conditions are very soft .Our aim is to keep the course clean and tidy through the winter months but the need to mow on soft ground will cause damage and be dangerous for the operators. So we have to be protective and only use the small windows of opportunity that we get to carry out mowing. Greens have been hand mowed, and Tees ,Aprons and Fairways are cut when we can do so with minimal damage and marking up.Other  areas are not being mowed as the machinery is too heavy on the soft ground.

                                                               Buggy marking  up  ground
The Traffic control around the course is to help protect the course and keep it clean and tidy through the winter. If Golfers keep there trolleys on the paths around the greens and tees it will go a long way to helping in this respect.

Nick Roberts my Deputy has been successful in his interview to attend the TPC John Deere Golf Tournament in America 2016.He will join a British contingent to work there for a week in preparing the course.

Now after a long wait we have been able to get new tracks for our mini digger and this has been busy out on the course. We have extended some of the path areas identified last year as being very wet, these being the 3rd  green,5th tee and green,7th tee and 9th Tee Heron.

 

 

Path area marked out

Area dug out

Add road planings

Wacker plate in

Finished path

 

We have dug out a new ditch across the 7th heron in a particularly wet area after locating a drainage pipe to take away the run off.

       
                                                             located drainage pipe

 

dig out new ditch

ditch and new path completed 7th Heron

 

Another new ditch has been put in on the 4th Hawk on the right as this is a very wet fairway

 

 

Work has taken place on a number of bunkers to clean out the contaminated sand over the drainage and then flush out the pipes before adding new clean shingle, sand will be added at a later date.

Bunkers worked on include 2nd green ,3rd fairway7th fairway,8th green Heron 1st fairway Vixen

                                                              Geoff locating bunker drainage

 

New shingle added in bunker

 

The bridge near the 9th green Vixen has been repaired after careless damage by person(s) unknown

 

 

 

One morning it was a pretty picture view across the reservoir

 

The  mild weather and higher than normal temperatures for this time of the year has put the greens under intense  pressure from Micodochium nivale or Fusarium disease. To help maintain a clean putting surface we have to work to encourage a healthy turf with our routine maintenance programme of regular aeration, balanced nutrient and chemical programme. From September we are already watching the weather forecasts for wet and mild weather which will encourage the development of the disease  and before any development we apply a preventative fungicide,to ensure a clean putting surface,this is then followed by another preventative fungicide in late October when we hope the weather conditions have changed and are less favourable to disease development. This  preventative strategy is much like those who are vulnerable to flu and go and have a flu jab .The following photos show an untreated collar next to the green with disease and the green which is clean.

 

When the weather conditions prevent using our triple ride on mowers we then have to hand mow the greens which are now being mowed at 5mm.

                                                            setting up the mowers

 

 Mowing the greens

 

The wild flower areas have been mown and the arisings removed to take away the nutrient stored in them

 

Strimming work has been carried out to define the ditches

                                                                           before

after

 

Recently Paul Selbie (Course manager Stapleford Abbotts) Nick Roberts and Myself attend the BIGGA South East Regional Seminar day at Harlow College where a number of speakers covering a variety of relevant subjects relating to our work spoke.

 

 

 

                                                

 Early morning sunrise recently

 

The British Masters is under way at Woburn and Nick Roberts my Deputy has taken a few days holiday so that he was able to volunteer to work with 20 other green keeping volunteers and Woburn staff.His duties have included hand mowing the tees and blowing debris off the course, He was spotted on Sky TV eating a Burger cooked by Ian Poulter. Keep watching you may see him actually working there!

Much of our work during this fine spell of weather involves some kind of aeration as we need to complete as much as we can before any prolonged wet and /or cold weather hinders our work .We have recently completed deep tining the greens which was then followed by using the true turf roller to smooth surface levels and we applied a granular feed to keep the nutrient level in balance.We will soon be applying our 2nd preventative spray to control any disease pressure which will help keep  the turf  free of disease scars.

Aeration will continue on the tees, fairways and walk off areas.


Some work has started on cleaning up and tidying bunker faces and this will continue through the winter months.

                                                                           Before

                                                                        During

                                                                  Finished

                                            Some late autumn colour around the clubhouse

On behalf of the Green staff I would like to thank Glen Turner  one of our members who without being asked volunteered and repaired the Bench vandalised by the 1st tee Hawk.Very much appreciated Glen... Thanks.

while in the thanking mood I would like to thank Roger Horne for looking after the seniors flower bed and the Seniors section for supplying funds to purchase plants for it. Much Appreciated 

With our renovation on the greens completed after a topdressing and an application of fungicide to prevent disease we have turned our attention to the fairways and tees.These have been scarified using our Sisis Quadraplay .This stands up the sward and lifts out the dead and horizontal grass, encouraging a more upright growth.We hope to follow this by slit tining and feeding.
The tees were first fertilised to encourage some growth and recovery after the summer ,the weather provided some rain to wash it all in before they were then scarified and solid tined.The main wear areas being  seeded and topdressing.Our aim is to have  good grass coverage on the tees to stand up to play through the winter months as only the par three holes usually are on mats.

solid  tining tees

golfers teeing off after a tee has been scarified and sold tined

Quadraplay in action on a tee

renovating worn tee area

levelling in the seed and dressing

Know doubt you will notice these red lines on the greens which have been marked so we can reshape the cut of the collars around the greens near some of the irrigation popups.Those popups which are sited close to the greens are regularly knocked or damaged by the triple mower cutting the collars,so by altering the mowing shape near them we will eradicate this issue.It will take a few weeks for the grass to grow and give the desired definition around these areas.

Autumnal is now approaching and its the time of autumn fruits which can be seen around the course 

a selection of photos taken at different sites on the course. 

Its that time of year when we have to be cruel to be kind to the greens.The green staff have work hard over a few days carrying out what is a physical job ,shovelling up tonnes of cores and dodging some very heavy rain showers to get all the greens cored ,cleared up and in play.Even though they were playing well and in good condition it is important that we continue our  maintenance to keep the greens heathy for now and into the future.Doing nothing may seem a good decision to the golfer  but it will come back to hurt later and the treatment then would  be  more costly and require more intensive work  and disruption. Carrying out this treatment in August  allows a much quicker recovery time as the warmer conditons encourage the grass to quickly grow and heal over the treatment.This work will be followed by an application of topdressing with sand to restore surfaces levels.

When the weather changes and work outside is impractical then we are able to turn our attention to machinery maintenance,changing oils and filters and greasing the machines

In recent months it has been  noticeable that there is more damage to course furniture , litter  around the course and damage on the greens by both golfers and foot golf players which takes up time and money which could be better utilised  for the benefit of all on the course.

                                                         Seat 1st tee Hawk damaged

Golf Club damage on 5th green Vixen

When we don't require the irrigation on the greens we will be carrying out some repairs to certain damage pipework which we have had issues with.We will be altering some of the shaping around the greens popups as these are being knocked and damaged by our mowers.These areas will be marked out with paint so that our staff can re-mow out the new collar shapes.This will take a few weeks to get the right definition as they grow in.

As Green staff we are called on to do many and various tasks often not associated with producing fine turf, one example recently was filling in potholes along the road way into the club

The flower area behind the 1st green Heron has done reasonably well flowering late due to the lack of rain in the early summer

and recently as Nick was moving our compost material in the yard he came across a fully mature grass snake