April May issues?

The past two months have been difficult for the green keeping team.The loss of two members of staff at short notice meant we were only able to give our full attention to the main key areas of play like greens,tees and fairways.Other areas only received sporadic attention while we went through the process of recruiting,interviewing and appointing new personnel to build up our team.
We are now able announce that Steve Rowley has joined us from Bishops Stortford Golf Club as my Deputy,He has over 10 years experience as well has holding NVQ ,spraying and chainsaw qualifications


                   Steve Rowley

We have also appointed Francis Lesser to our team  who has completed a diploma in Horticulture at Writtle college ,although he has no golf course experience he is keen to learn and has already started working on the course.The old water bowser has a good wild flower mix following on from the spring bulbs out side the Maintenance building  were Francis is standing.                                  

We have been working on tidying up areas that had not been targeted for a few weeks ,so all the bunkers have now been trimmed and edged and a total weed control applied 

All the range has now been mowed after certain wet areas had been left to dry out.The greens have been sprayed with a selection of products consisting of soluble fertilisers and seaweed.We hope to top dress the greens in the coming weeks.The course is now coming back into shape.

Matt and myself attended a Bigga educational event recently at Channels Golf Club to see the changes being made to the course as large areas of land have been sold for housing development.New holes are in the process of being laid out and greens and tees being built with much of the work done by the staff on site, as they have the experience, machinery and equipment on site to do the work.

Recently all the Crowngolf General and Course Managers attended a meeting  at Cams Hall Golf Club part of which was the annual awards,though South Essex was not on the receiving end.  

               Cams Hall Golf Club house

Five months in the making or more like 5 months in the waiting a short video (in HD) taken in Stonyhill wood showing the short life cycle of the bluebells on the course this year.

Last task for Nick

One of the last tasks for my Deputy before he left was to erect the new trellis fencing  underneath the verander.It was one of those days when you experience all the seasons in the space of a few hours.

Sunshine one minute 

Sleet and hail the next

But the job was finally finished.

All the Greens have been sprayed with Soluble feed with some seaweed and growth control added .We are now spraying the fairways with some feed and iron to boost there recovery after scarifying them.

At the beginning of April we introduce Craig Brindley to the green keeping team but unfortunately we had to allow him to leave so we are now busy recruiting a new Deputy and Assistant to bring back the team to  full strength.

The next few days promise some sunshine and warmth so will see some Spring growth 

And good views around the golf course.

There are times when all green keeping experiences and knowledge have no relevance to some of the tasks we have to be involved in and it can be a case of the phrase "Jack of all trades"

       below we are repairing potholes after wear and rain through the winter weakens the road

                          Here we are inspecting the Maintenance Building Roof Guttering 

 

           and below we are finishing off the drainage work behind the range to create a channel for water to enter the new waste pipe we installed

On the course we have solid tined the greens and applied a wetting agent  which was nicely washed in by the rain.This was followed when the greens were dry with a sand top dressing to help fill in the scarify lines.

On the Fairways we scarified and brushed  them in the opposite direction to our normal mowing pattern so that the grasses would stand erect and remove the dead vegetation and moss.

 My favourite spring time flower is seeing the bluebells come out in all there glory and can be seen around the course on all 3 courses as you walk pass the woodlands

 My Deputy Nick Roberts will shortly be leaving Crown Golf and South Essex to move to Farley Golf Club in Surry as a Deputy  and we wish him well in his new position as well as congratulations, as he will be travelling to Eire to get married to Victoria who works at the Hertfordshire  as Sales Manager

New staff member

We welcome Craig Brindley to our Green keeping team who joins us after working at Royal Norwich Golf Club.We trust he will enjoy his new role at South Essex.

We have over seeded the greens with a fescue bent mix and then sand dressed them before finally brushing it all in to the sward.

We hope to lightly scarifying the fairways  and then apply a soluble fertiliser with iron to give some nutrients and colour this week.

One of the flower beds in front of the clubhouse has been renovated by digging up the perennial plants and splitting them up,weeding the bed and then replanting it and add Woodchip,the spare plants were moved to another bed

  

 An area close to the fence near the road by the 4th hole vixen has been cleared and tidied up,

allowing a clearer view up to the 4th tee from the road so that car drivers can see if golfers are about to tee off.

 

     Below an interesting early morning colourful sky

march renovation

This month we have stared our renovation work on both the Tees and Greens.As most of the tees are in play over the winter they suffer  from wear and damage in the wet and colder weather.To aid recovery we have carried out aeration work in the form of solid tining,followed by scarifying and brushing,fertilising with a slow release product then over seeding and dressing.

The greens were likewise worked on with our main emphasis  on removing thatch by scarifing and blowing off the debris,mowing to clean the surface before topdressing with sand and brushing that in.A liquid feed of soluble fertiliser was applied along with other beneficial products to aid recovery,Although the temperatures both day and night are low which slows down grass growth and therefore slows down the recovery period.

This photo shows the green 8days after the work was completed

We will over seed the greens before apply another dressing of sand to firm the surface and restore levels .

Bunkers have been treated with a total weed control to keep them clean,but one of the main issues we have with bunkers is that they are generally at the bottom of slopes so that rain water runs into them from the surrounding land contaminating the sand with silt and clay deposits.This gets mixed in to the bunker sand and forms a mixture like cement which greatly hinders drainage.We have been working on a few of the worst ons to try and improve the drainage in the short term.

Near the driving range we have installed a new drainage pipe to remove water from the down pipe and ball wash area.Upon investigation we found that a gully pot had been installed for the down pipe but no drainage pipe had been installed to take the water away.

When the drier window of opportunity appears we have taken advantage of it to give those areas of the course that we can mow a cut, mainly the greens, tees ,fairways and aprons. There were still some areas which were soft and we did have to pull out various machines that got stuck. But on the whole the course does have some definition.

 

We have spent some time removing the bulrushes from the pond on the 6th Heron which was becoming over run and covering over the pond surface. We first lowered the water level to make it easier to wade through then the reeds were hand pulled and stacked on the bankside to be disposed of after any water fauna has returned back into the pond.

 

 

 

We have continued to use the astro turf on various areas of the course especially in high wear areas, these should help prevent walk off areas from damage. These will be seen on the 8th vixen green and 8th hawk green walk off areas. On the foot golf tee areas astro turf has been placed down for all the 18 tee areas on the Vixen.

 

 Drainage work on the bunker and path has been undertaken on the 8th Heron and we have been out sanding the walk off areas.

 

 

Spring is showing its self now with the spring bulbs in flower providing some colour around the clubhouse and we have had a few frosts recently to add to the scenery on the course.

 

This South Essex Green Keeping Team which has only been together less than a year is to lose one of its members as Ross Sullivan will be leaving to join the new Course being built at Rainham known as Ingrebourne Links. We wish him well in his new venture. The team enjoyed a get together for breakfast in the woods

                                                     Ross tucks into his burger with gusto!

Path complete

We have completed joining the path from the 3rd tee to the 4th tee on the Hawk course which will give us better access to that area of the course without having to travel on the grass marking up the turf during wet periods

 Some of the staff including David our F&B Manager, Ross,Matt and myself attended a first aid course to comply with Health and Safety 

Ross giving CPR to Annie who is in a bad  way no artifial resus dummy's were harmed in this incident 

Accidents do happen but Matt makes a fine sling on Ross all's well that ends wel

We have been out with our mowers to try and give the course some definition by cutting tees ,aprons and fairways but some areas were still soft and marked up

By the 8th tee Heron we have installed some of our AstroTurf over a muddy walk area

Windy dry weather is what is required to dry the course but more rain is forecast