Course update!!!
It has been quite a frustrating week in looking back as it didn’t feel as productive as we would have liked, the sand installation ended up much more labour intensive than we expected to be honest, and we had been running 4 men down due to holidays and training days etc…
Monday was to be the driest day so we decided we would cut fairways and only brush greens to rest them as had been cut all weekend, we did a good tee set up and divot, painted all the distance markers and most hazards etc..
Tuesday, while still light on staff we did get straight out onto sand installation at the 11th with some (35 tonnes) of sand had to be hand shovelled and spread evenly, we cut up some drainage pipes and placed them across the bunkers to guide us with our depths, 6” on the base and 4” on the faces.
Once the sand was in place we then began the lengthy painstaking process of raking out, heel treading, raking… repeating the process over and over to pack them in, we had expected much more rain throughout which would have helped us with compaction but in never came to much.
we worked on late Thursday night to get the last bunker sand installed.
We had also been 2x cutting greens daily since Wednesday, reducing the height of cut from 6mm to 5mm.. The greens always slow down when first reducing the height but we plan to 2x cut them tomorrow and also roll them which should speed us up a tad.
We have also managed to get the new PG down to that height (5mm) it isn’t as strong as we would like but we will have 4 holes cut on the strongest section until we get the germination for seed recovery.
We did manage to turf in the 2x vertical drains applied on the 18th fairway just before the road replaced the collapsed inspection slab on the 18th fairway also.
This really only left Friday to try and get the course in shape.
This morning we…
2x cut greens
cut all fairways
2x cut tees
2x cut approaches
2x hand cut aprons
full tee set up & divot
full bunker preparation
We had been monitoring the new bunkers playability today and felt the sand was so dry and therefore soft, we had to take late action and prime up the irrigation to go and hand water them down, it has seen an improvement but it will take a week or so of heavy rains and continues heel treading and raking until they solidify.
All bunkers will be in play for tomorrows medal but they will be fairly soft, some balls could plug and if members do find themselves in the bunkers please try to be as light footed as possible, and equally light handed in raking until we get them tightened up.
I think it’s important that we point out that the course isn’t as tidy as we would have liked at this point, but now the project work is complete, you will start to see the course moving up in standards.
Seeds are now going in the ground as temps are rising so we will start to see much more recovery on the weakest parts.
Greens surrounds in particular are desperate to fill out so we can then run machinery over them to cut them down, any areas longer that you would expect at this point is in fact a protection measure.
Quick mention to both of our trainee apprentices.
Fraser has been part of the team for 4 years he is about go take on his last year level 3 sports turf maintenance, Andrew just joined us back in May last year and has just completed his first year of level 2.
Both of these lads give 100% everyday no matter what. They also work well together and they have a positive competition on most of their work results.
Fraser has been cutting fairways since last summer, Andrew started this week and both lads managed cutting the fairways 2x this week and they smashed it… well done lads keep up the good work👍
Best of luck to all taking part in the first medals of this new season 🏌️♂️⛳️😎
