Course update!

It’s been a busy one on the course this week with some good morning set ups ahead of both our Ladies day and then the Tuesday medal. 

All greens cut and rolled, holes changed, all fairways and approaches cut both mornings ahead of golf and bunkers fully prepared  with a tees set up. 

Tees and surrounds were cut on alternative days Monday & Tuesday morning. 

We cut all the fairways for the 3rd day in a row on Wednesday in preparation for our first growth regulator and nutritional spray mix application which went out straight behind the mowers. 

We also made a start divoting fairways. 

We completed the fairway divot this Friday PM. 

Wednesday into Thursday 

We took the flymows to all bunker and tee banks. 

We cut the surrounds for a second time this week in the afternoon since we dropped the height of cut, we wanted a good dry cut with no moisture from morning dew.

Greens the same, cut in the morning and then again in the afternoon at lower height of cut 3.75mm.

All semi rough was cut Wednesday, Thursday and Friday we cut the practice range field. 

The semi rough is realy struggling to get moving with the current temperatures, we hadn’t planned to feed the rough as wasn’t required last year but we are now considering applying some granular outfield fertiliser to selective weak semi-rough areas to push things along. 

We are now planning to have the driving range floor and the little short holes cut down with the fairway mowers and on to the same cutting routines as the fairway mowing, this should see a big improvement and should in time replicate close to the fairways on the course, We do accept that we haven’t given the field much input as we always priorities the course and then do what we can on the range with what time we have left over, cutting the field equates to the loss of one man for 1.5 days if we cut all surfaces,  bringing the fairway mowers in should cut that loss back a tad but it is very labour intensive for the quality of the facility. 

The driving range floor has been cut down already for the first time, so isn’t looking the best and needs a tidy up, please bare with it until Monday please.

We have already seen a great turf response to our recent Base granular fertiliser applications applied last week on greens, tees, approaches and surrounds and walk offs etc… All of these surfaces have already started to improve on density meaning we are now able to start the process of getting our cutting heights down at last. 

It would have been noticed that our heights of cut weren’t as they where this time last year. The reason being the temperatures are around 4 weeks behind on last year and low heights of cut on the turf when they aren’t able to respond to nutrient intake can have a negative impact on the turf and really set us back for the season ahead.

However the turf has now responded and we have begun the process of lowering heights this week.

Greens from 4.5-3.75mm (working down to 3.5)

Tees and approaches 13mm-12mm, (planning for 11mm) 

Surrounds 30mm down to 25mm ( we will attempt to get down to 22mm depending on how the turf responds to each 1mm incriminate. 

We will drop the fairways down from 16mm to 14mm next week, which we will try to maintain unless we hit a dry spell in which case they will pop back up to 15 or even 16mm depending on how dry it gets. 

Heights  of cut have a massive impact of turf quality and coverage can be lost very quickly, but not so easily recovered if the heights are below the stress levels, especially in a dry spell. 

We appreciate and share the frustration when the course isn’t where we would like it to be due to the temperatures but the turf has begun to respond so we will now go from strength to strength. 

We are always keen to hear our members feedback on course set up and conditions and if there some consistent constructive feedback we will always asses what can be done to improve if required.

Have a look at the 12th fairway last year during a lengthy dry spell, we decided to cut half of the fairway at 14mm and didn’t cut the other half. You can clearly see the stress signs after one day, if we  had  continued to mow at that height regularly we would 100% have lost coverage very quickly. 

Glasgow green team

🌱⛳️🏌️‍♂️😎