February

In the last couple of weeks we have been out with our Weidenmann aerator using 20mm solid tines to aerate those compacted traffic areas of the course around tees ,greens and paths.



We are working through our early spring maintenance on the greens a video to follow later as well as the new path work on the Heron coure

Some of the Maintenance staff attended a recent Bigga Seminar day at Oaklands College to listen to a variety of speakers covering topics from soil science to irrigation. There were two Course managers  who covered what its like to manage a big golfing event at The Grove and whats its like when a club committee decide to invest in there staff  machinery and course at Stoneham golf club. Interesting to hear what goes on at other clubs.

 

One of the tasks not seen by our members and golfers is the excellent work done by our Mechanic Justin who works on all the repairs to our equipment to keep them woking so we can carry out out our regular tasks on the course.Here he is working on the Kubota tractor wiring loom,The Ford Tractor in the background is split in half to find the gearing problem.

 

Spring is in the air with the daffodils coming into flower and crocuses on the clubhouse lawn with a honey bee looking for early nectar and pollen.

 

 

Carrying out essential work on the Greens

 

We have used the weather window after the snow and frost to carry out essential work on the greens see video below

 

 

 

Now that the greens are a little softer and more receptive to turf repair we have returfed the damage on the 9th Hawk green that was done  by a hydraulic oil leak a few months ago see video below

 

 

 

We would like to pass on  a Happy New Year to our members and visitors and trust you continue to play and enjoy your golf at South Essex.
 I have just passed a personal milestone by celebrating 20 years service at South Essex as Course Manager. My desire has not changed to see South Essex as one of, if not the best course in Essex. Of course certain aspects are out of my hands in being able to achieve that aim. All the work that we do though is to improve the course for our members and visitors as best as we are able to.

 At the start of the new year we continued with our maintenance programme until stopped by the weather, Greens were slit,brushed and cut, walk off areas sanded,and ditch clearing work continued.

3rd Hawk left of Green

Ditch behind 4th Hawk Tee before and after work

 

 

Winter arrived giving a couple of centimetres of snow followed by days of frost

 

 7th Green Vixen

 

Trolley lines in the frost over the collars and green 1st Heron What happened to using the paths around the greens?

 

 

Work is being undertaken to repair the Weir in the ditch 9th Hawk to comply with the Environment Agency as its the point where we abstract from to supply our Irrigation Reservoir

January comes with the annual visit to Harrogate for BTME to visit the turf Exhibition as well as attending workshops and Seminars. A number of Crown Golf Course Managers attended as well as Steven Towers CEO of the Company.

Time to Dream of new Machines for the course

 

Early morning sunlight on a clear frosty morning brightens up the clubhouse

 

We have completed putting in a new post and rail fence around the back of the 9th Tees on the Heron to give definition between the new path and the Tee area

Our paint brushes have been well used repainting and treating the Benches on the course as well as various seats ,posts and signs to protect the wood and appearance

We have replaced missing Out of Bound posts and repainted them

Work has started on edging up bunkers, this gives definition to the shape and improves the appearance, improving the standard on the course.

December

Assistant Green Keeper Francis Lesser who has never played golf before had his first golfing experience when we were invited to play in the Seniors Turkey Trot. He scored 2points for his team .

No doubt modelling himself on the golfer Ricky Fowler,you possible can see the connection 

Work continues on ditch clearing , below working on the 3rd cross ditch Hawk

Golfers are often seen using buggies on the course, but the picture below shows that the name golfers in this case is inappropriate, other names quickly come to mind I'm sure

9th apron Vixen 

2nd green Heron

Flag pin broken,green damaged 9th Vixen 

Still some variety of  fungi and lichens to be seen around the course

Fungal issues on Greens Tees and Fairways have been a real problem for golf course managers in the south east. Even though preventative  spraying was applied additional applications were required to try to keep on top of the disease .We have used 4 applications this autumn period on the greens and some courses have applied 6 in trying to control it. The photo below taken in late December was on the 9th tee Hawk. We only spray greens as its to costly to apply to other areas. We continue to use cultural control as well ,in keeping the greens as clean as practically possible.

The shrubbery around the starters hut has been trimmed and cleaned and then we applied our free woodchip around the plants.

 

The green keeping team had an event at a nearby scout camp where we did archery, with Geoff and Steve having the best team score.

When  the weather conditions and light  are right there are some good photo opportunities.

Oak tree on the 1st and 6th Heron

Below 7th hawk and 3rd Heron in the mist

I would like to wish all our members and visitors to South Essex an enjoyable Christmas and New Year and hope to see you all on the course in 2017

NEW PATH Extensions

Our autumn /winter work programme continues with the greens having been sprayed with a fungicide,and a wormicide. Aeration work with regular slit tining and rolling continues as well.The tees have been solid tined and sprayed with the wormicide. The dry autumn had restricted the amount of slit tining accomplished on the Fairways but recently we have been able to carry this out as well.

We have completed 2 new path extensions on the Heron course on holes 6 and 9 from the tees to the greens A video of the work done is on youtube to watch.




During the frosty weather we have been clearing some overgrown areas, below is a photo of ditch clearing behind the 8th green Vixen

 Here we have opened the view into the Pond behind the 4th green Vixen

As last winter was so wet we identified certain areas that would benefit from using the free Astroturf that we had and a number of areas around the course were completed. That left 3 walkout areas to do  and this also has been  completed  on 2nd green Heron,4th Green Vixen and 6th Green Hawk 

Working on Ditch clearing 9th Vixen left of the green

 Some of the green staff have attended a one day first aid course as well as attending for the first time the  BIGGA South East Regional Seminar which covered topics such as Soil Biology,Use of seaweed product on turf,Golf course ecology as well as other topics held at Surrey Downs Golf Club.

Below is the Bigga Learning Programme booklet for Harrogate 2017 with a photo of the South Essex Course Manager (fortunately) looking interested at a workshop in 2016

 I took this photo just as I was leaving work  late afternoon by the 4th Vixen

September and October have remained very dry with the course still needing rain to encourage growth .We have  started our autumn programme of aeration on the greens with deep solid-tining ,slitting and sarel rolling and applied fungicide and feed followed by sand topdressing. The height of the greens has been raised to 5mm .

                    Solid tining Greens

 

We had some sand left after topdressing and this was used to top up some greenside bunkers.

We have acquired 3 hand mowers from within our group that were unused and will now be able to hand mow the tees through the winter months when conditions allow.

 

Video  of work on the greens

Summer arrived

 In recent weeks regular players on the course will have seen various areas of what we call the Environmental rough being cut .It has been decided  to mow these areas to help speed up play and give a better customer experience which we hope will encourage players to return and therefore increase revenue.

The areas so far cut are on the 1st, 3rd,5th and 6th 8th Heron,1,2,7 and 9 Hawk and 1,2 5 6 8 and 9 Vixen

             below the 1st Vixen  on the left before mowing
       
                                                 1st Vixen after its 1st cut

                 2nd Hawk

           
               1st and 9th  Hawk

Summer has arrived and its evidence can be seen on the course with the firm dry fairways and tees

It is essential that our irrigation system  is in operation during these summer days and of course it only fails when you are using it,so repairs have to be carried out to rectify the issues.recently we had to work on a repair on the 4th green Hawk which was done in house.

 Like many clubs in the area we have used the ideal weather to carry out our summer renovation on the greens with hollow coring,applying nearly 40 tonnes of sand in two applications to  topdressing them and then bushed in and rolled.A liquid feed was sprayed after the operation to help restore the surfaces of the greens.Before we commenced the work we tested the equipment on the putting green to setup the machinery so that we do not damaged the surfaces on the course with wrongly setup equipment,mistakes  are rectified there first.

 

Steve Rowley repairing some early damage on the putting green

 Hollow coring and blowing the cores

Green after topdressing and brushing,we then rolled the greens to help smooth up the surface.

What we want to achieve is deep root growth and the photo below was taken on the first green Heron after our work and proves that previous aeration is doing its job.

After applying the second topdressing we had a few tonnes left so these were added to the bunkers on the 4th green Heron

Wasps  take up residence in a green side bunker 6th Hawk

Following on from our BIGGA Ecology workshop we were mentioned in the BIGGA magazine as well.

Now that Matt Dunne has left us we have given Paul Challis the full time position , he has been working as a summer casual with previous experience at Orsett Golf Club .This keeps our full time team at 4 staff, here he is rolling the greens on the Turf iron.

When someone drives a buggy many times in and out of a steep edge bunker they not only leave tyre markers and turf damage but put the buggy out of action requiring a call out to Yamaha to repair  with a bill the club has to pay