Killermont Course update!!!

It’s been a good week on the course with the exception of “Jack frost” limiting our course set ups ahead of play Mon,Tue,Wed mornings… it’s not ideal when we are looking for the recovery growth we would expect by now. 

However we did maximise our course set up preparation in what little time frames we had before 1st tee time with each frost delay. 

The Big progressive feature for us this week was getting our base granular fertiliser applications down ahead of the rain Thursday into Friday, these applications are key to bringing the turf quality up to our standards as they bring up the nutritional values in the soil for the plant and different grass species to level out any etiolated growths, ultimately bringing the turf quality on to the next level!!!

Over the course of Monday and Tuesday we had all of our surfaces cut except semi-rough. 

Mon-Tues mowing….

Greens

approaches

surrounds 

flymow all bunker and tee banks 

Various strimming 

aprons  

fairways.

Knowing we had the visitors shotgun start on Wednesday morning and a possible frost delay…

Ryan took it upon himself to come in Tuesday evening to change the holes which freed a man up to push the set up Wednesday morning , that was a massive help. 

Wednesday morning we arrived at 5.00 in the hope the frost didn’t come, we had planned to cut all surfaces including fairways but a white frost meant we couldn’t get at the greens so we switched on the irrigation for a couple of minutes just to speed up the thaw which enabled us to start mowing at 7.30 That made all made all the difference!

We did manage to  walk round and fully rake the bunkers in the frost, Craig set up 5 hand mowers ready for the guys to go out and cut all greens in that 2hr gap. 

we also managed to roll the greens & cut approaches, although it was tight in the end with golf teeing up as we were on our last green out at the 14th, we wouldn’t have managed that if not for running irrigation!!!

The guys had a well earned rest then did some maintenance at the sheds and set up for fertiliser applications ahead of the rain forecast Thursday into Friday, we also managed to get out and clear almost all of the grass bins, that was long overdue. (Just one or 2 more to go on the back end)

As soon as the visiting party came off the course we got straight out with 2 spreaders applying the base granular fert to both greens and tees. 

It was a long day for us starting at 5.00am to 18.30, but happy to get these applications down ahead of the rain. 

Thursday morning was another big push in at 6.00 am and out cutting fairways and surrounds and semi-rough, followed up with applying granular fertiliser to the surrounds of greens and bunkers, all walk offs and historically weak areas  newly seeded last year. 

We look for around 5mm rain minimum rainfall to wash our fertiliser applications in and by the end of Friday we had just over 8mm in the beaker and had run 2x irrigation applications on greens and surrounds one in the morning and one at night. That should be perfect with more rain forecast over the weekend. 

It may have been noticed we didn’t cut the greens Thursday or Friday just to let the rain wash in the application, greens would have been much slower for that reason, but looking to double cut and roll tomorrow if required to get the speeds back up. 

The first application of sand in the new bunkers at 11 and 14 had, as expected sunk down a tad but we managed to install around 1.5 tonne to each bunker which should stabilise fairly soon, as it is the old sand that came out old bunkers, which should firm up fairly quick. 

We previously noted back in January that the 15th green had suffered form deep soil compaction resulting in poor drainage. 

This has had an impact on turf quality on the edges of the green. 

This will now be our next priority green for primary drainage installation next winter, in the mean time we have brought the green in just to let it recover as we have applied seed and nutrition, so we don’t want to be running the mowers over new seedlings etc.. it’s encouraging to see that the seed has already started to germinate this week and with some rain and fertiliser we will fully recover the green and cut it back out ASAP. 

We are looking forward to course preparation for the spring meetings Saturday medal, 

Greens cut

greens rolled 

Holes changed

full bunker rake 

Tee set up 

Best of luck to all competing in tomorrow’s Spring meeting. 

🌱⛳️😎

Killermont course update!

 Course update!!!

Great working conditions this week and we feel like we are now beginning to see the course take shape. 

Monday was all about course set up preparation as we cut all surfaces.

Greens

tees

approaches 

fairways 

We also made a start on bunker maintenance with the redistribution of sands and topping up where low, this continued all week and will be complete by end of play next week, (very labour intensive & time consuming)

Holes still to do 2,3,4,5,6,17

Tuesday we undertook some essential greens maintenances.

Each green was dressed with 1-1.5 tonne of sand, then pencil tine aeration, brushed and hand watered in. 

We normally look to do this work ahead of heavy rain forecast but we felt that waiting on rains would mean sand disruption could get in the way of competitions and events if we held off. 

We did our best not to disrupt golf as we were out sharp on Tuesday morning at 5.00 am. Working in number order until golf was close to catching us, we then jumped to work 18th working back until we met golf and then we stopped for the day. 

This only left us 8 greens on the course to tackle Wednesday morning 5,8,910,11,12,13,14, we then did the same work to putting and practice greens. 

There is of course some excess sand on the greens but we are watering it in daily until down off the leaf completely into to the profile. 

Thursday our bunker maintenance continued and we made a start doing a full blow and collect of debris across the course, we managed to have the course completed on Friday morning. 

We are now much more tidy for that work. 

All practice range surfaces was cut on Thursday also. 

Various strimming and flymow work. 

Friday…

Greens cut

Holes changed 

Tee set up & divot 

Fairways cut

Tees cut 

Approaches cut

Blow and collect debris 

Full bunker rake 

Cundy guards removed 

Soil spill from drainage left of 10th tee shaped and seeded. 

Tree trunks removed from the left of 10th at fence. 

Looking ahead to next week it looks like we could be in for some frost mornings as the temps look set to fall. 

On a positive note, we have been comparing some historically weak bare areas which we did a lot of work with seed and rootzone dressing last year and to find them come through the winter with full coverage is very encouraging to see. 

We will deploy the same plan much earlier on this time round and the challenge will be to have full coverage throughout the course going into June as opposed to the end of the season last year. 

 We appreciate the patience of our members on what has been a slow start getting up to speed. 

Kind regards 

Glasgow Greens Team!

Killermont Greens maintenance

 Greens maintenance!!!

over the next couple of days (Tuesday & Wednesday.. We are getting in some important greens maintenance which will set the greens up for the season ahead.

sand dressing with light pencil tinning followed with  brushing and watering  in… 

We are out sharp this morning working from the 1st  onwards until golf catches us, then we will work 18 back back until we meet golf and then we stop for today. 

Tomorrow we will try to get the greens we didn’t manage today ahead of golf. 

there will be excess sand on greens this week. 

We would appreciate some patience while we undertake this essential work. 

kind regards 

Glasgow Greens team 

Killermont Course update!!!

 Killermont Course update!!!

It’s been another big week for the team as we increased our cutting routines while ticking off another big project as we prepared the chipping green at the pro shop and transferred the greens turf from 18th green at Bearsden GC.

It was a challenging operation and very physically demanding but the guys smashed it with all work completed in 2 full working days. 

Tremendous effort!!!

Monday and Tuesday our staffing levels were really low due to holidays etc.. 

The guys focused on cutting all surfaces…

Greens

fairways 

tees 

approaches 

greens and bunker surrounds 

aprons 

and semi rough

various fly mowing 

We got the confirmation on Tuesday evening that the 18th Green at Bearsden was available to lift from Wednesday. 

Wednesday morning as I was  collecting the trailer and hired turf cutter the guys got straight out onto the putting green doing all required preparation, pencil tinned the green, dressed and levelled in rootzone. 

We all headed down to Beardsen GC for 10.00

and cut the turf as thick as possible 2” deep 24” wide. This meant the turf slabs were really heavy to manoeuvre around 20kg per slab. 

The idea is to take as much of its original profile so that the green will establish as quickly as possible. 

So we began cutting and lifting onto the trailer slab by slab, we could only manage 40m2 in one load due to the weight of the tick slabs, we were able to drive down to our PG which meant we could transfer and lay the turf into place on the green with no double handling. 

We persevered until around 17.30 and got around half way through. 

Thursday morning we teamed in again and met at 6.00am, tooled up and down to Beardsen GC for 6.45. 

We continued lifting and laying the turf until all 300m2 was lifted and laid, 8 loads in total. 

We actually split the team up from lunch time so that 3 guys were able to get out onto the golf course and undertake some very important maintenance and course preparation. 

Ryan was out spraying a nutritional mix onto greens, tees, approaches and aprons. 

Frazer had his first attempt at over-seeding the greens, this is normally undertaken by a more senior member of staff but Fraser has shown a lot of competence lately and he worked on until 1900 to give all the greens a full bent seed mix application and he even managed to hit the weaker greens 2x… all in perfect timing for the temps set to rise next week. 

The guys done a fantastic job to prep, lift and lay a full green in 2 days work, Fraser applied the new green it’s first bent seed application while the seems and joins were still open, we then began to work across the green forking & thumping any high corners and finished off by running our turf iron over it in 3 different directions.

Unbelievably we were putting across it with minimal ball deviation straight after!!!

Really happy with how it’s worked out, we will now look to apply some heavy sand dressings and apply a recovery fertiliser to push the seed and begin the process of getting it up to standard. 

Friday was all about course preparation.

Greens hand cut 4.75mm

aprons hand cut 2x

fairways cut

Tees cut 

Approaches cut

Greens sprayed soil & roots nutritional mix and bio stimulants. 

full tee set up and seed divot 

full bunker rake preparation 

turfing the wee practice fairway right of 2green 

various GUR white line 

Saturday Boby Jones shotgun preparation.

Greens hand cut 

Greens rolled 

holes changed 

full tee set up 

full bunker preparation 

Now with all the projects out the way and germination temps on the rise we will be completely focused on course preparation and turf quality throughout the course therefore improving week by week. 

Kind Regards 

Glasgow Greens Team

Killermont Course update!!!

 Course update!!!

A much more positive week in regards to productivity in comparison to last week as the 14th bunker sand installation cut well into our course preparation plans for the first medal.

As reported last week we knew we weren’t anywhere near as tidy as we would expect for the 1st medal. 

But with the bunker projects finally being put to one side we really did make up for lost time this week.  

Monday AM we cut Greens, tees, surrounds, bunker and tee banks for the first time this season.

In the afternoon we got stuck into blowing and collecting of debris, we all worked on late the Monday night to get as much done ahead of the Tuesday medal. 

We had planned to cut & roll greens, cut fairways, approaches and a full bunker rake and tee set up on Tuesday morning ahead of the medal… We turned up at 6.00 am to an unexpected white frost!!! this meant we could get near any turf with any machinery until it thawed. 

It  was just a leaf frost so we were able to all team in and walk round to prepare the bunkers and do a tee set up until the frost finally lifted around 7.40, and we had Craig set up 2 greens mowers at 5mm so we could get straight out just in front of 8.00 tee time and create a gap. 

We only cut 1st & 2nd and felt we had just made up enough time gap to bring the roller to the greens from the 3rd onwards. 

We also managed to change holes and squeeze in a hand cut the aprons in that tight time frame as well as blowing debris etc… 

That was some effort from the team given that we couldn’t get to the turf until 7.40, the only 2 things we couldn’t manage was cutting fairways and approaches, but we did squeeze in cutting aprons and blowing debris instead. That is all we can ever do, maximise the workload with the conditions presented to us. The team adapted brilliantly in ensure we maximised our resources to present a top class course set up. 

We even managed to get into the new bunkers with a hoes working on the compaction, it will take a couple of weeks with us continuously watering and treading until we get the compaction we require so at least 90% of balls make their way into the middle of the bunker, it’s just a wee a bit of patience required to let them settle, but we are keen to hear any feedback as there could be certain areas on bunkers which may be posing problems. 

Green maintenance

Wednesday we made a start of some light greens renovations as we scarified in 2x directions to remove some organic matter just down -5mm below surface, this will also create a seed bed as we are planning to overseed greens in next week with a light sand dressing to blanket the seed. 

We have continued to work the blower and collect debris across the course so member should find the course much more tidy than recent weeks. 

We are also burning in regular cutting routines and with temps slowly rising, we will just keep getting stronger with more definition week on week moving forward. 

We could see a frost forecast for Friday morning and knew our course set up would be limited again so Thursday was spent cutting all surfaces, greens,tees,fairways, approaches and surrounds… 

Fridays frost didn’t lift until 9.00. but we did manage to change holes and hand cut the greens, prepared the bunkers and a good tee set up. 

We have now opened the new PG but it is quite weak at this point as it does still need a fair bit of work so members might find it out of play while we undertake maintenance to overseed, topdress as much as possible in the coming weeks. 

We have uploaded a little video collage on our winter bunker construction out at 11 & 14. which shows the guys picking up some really neat construction skills. It is truly satisfying to see the team developing these skill sets on such projects, and for us all to look back with great pride on completion. 

Kind Regards 

Glasgow GC 

Greens Team