Winter Work

As we are now in the middle of Winter, there is not much for us to do as regards mowing grass so it gives us a nice opportunity to get around to other projects we don't get time to do in the growing season. We have begun to clear out the wooded areas, which entails cutting the branches of the trees up to around head height, clearing out the leaves and removing weed trees, hopefully leaving it easier to play out of when your ball goes in there! Another project we just finished was removing all the gorse hedging from the shrub bed around the lake on the 8th hole, it had become overgrown and was crowding out the other shrubs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Solid Tining Tees

This week we solid tined all of our tee boxes. This will help relieve compaction and allow air down to the roots of the plant. We plan to top dress them at the start of next week. While on the subject of the tee boxes, it would be greatly appreciated if all members and guests would refrain from dragging trolleys onto tee boxes. As we are now in winter, golf we will be played on frosty mornings. When trolleys are pulled across tees when there is frost, it burns the leaf of the plant and leaves ugly marks and weakens the plant. So please help us protect our course, thank you.

More Drainage Work

We are constantly working on improving our drainage out on the course. This year has been particularly tough, with an average of 4 inches of rain falling per month for this year so far, its safe to say our 20 year old drainage system has been under some pressure! Over the course of the winter, we plan to create some new drains and raise up low spots where water sits, hopefully then we will see the benefits next year. Below is a new drain being put in on 12 fairway in a spot that was severly damaged from sitting water.

Greens Aerification

Over the last 2 days, we aerified all of our greens. The next step is to top-dress them heavily with sand. This process causes a little disruption to golfers but it is essential and highly beneficial to the greens. The main benefit is it relieves soil compaction, over the course of the year the greens get so much traffic from golfers walking on them and us mowing them that the soil gets compacted. Roots need oxygen so this is not good for them. In good soil, roots get oxygen from tiny pockets of air trapped between soil and sand particles. This process helps us achieve that in our greens. We chose to use a small side eject tine which creates only a small hole in comparison to typical 3/4 inch hollow tines.

Verti Draining Fairways

This week we have started Verti draining our fairways. This will greatly benefit the course. The main benefit of using this machine is improved drainage. The tines on this machine are set to penetrate the surface to a depth of 9 inches, so you can imagine how this will help with compaction. It will also help get air down to the roots of the turf. The small holes left in the fairway as a result shouldn't last longer than a week.

New Tee Box

This week, we added a new championship tee box on no.5. The tee will add around 15 yards to the hole. It is pushed back into the border fence, further left than the existing tee, which calls for the shot to be shaped off the tee, making the hole substantially tougher when playing from the blues. When the turf becomes established, we will gradually lower the height of cut on the new sod, down to tee height.

 

 

 

 

 

Tree Work on No. 5

Today we cut back all the overhanging branches to the left of No. 5 tee and fairway. From years of growth, the trees on the border were overhanging and impeding tee shots. This opens up the hole off the tee considerably. With the trees cut back, we plan to reopen the old championship tee in the near future too. Below are some before and after pictures.

Drainage Work

Today we began drainage work on the golf course. Due to the excessive rain we've seen this year, some areas on the golf course have become saturated. We started in the spinney on the right hand side of no. 2. We are installing a drain that will run from the trees down to the lake to the right of the 3rd green. Also on no. 2 we are making an open drain that will start in the rough on the left hand side and run across the fairway down to the lake on the right. This will help drain the rough on the left quicker, an area which is always soggy after rain. It will also be a water hazard which will help toughen up the hole considerably. We have more drainage work planned in the coming weeks for other areas on the course.

Heavy Top Dressing

We heavily top dressed all of our greens today with around 1.5 tonnes of sand per green. We had planed to do it on Tuesday after pencil tining greens on Monday but we had to hold off due to the heavy rain. The reasons for putting down more sand than our usual top dressing was to really help firm up the greens after all the rain we've been getting, it will also help prevent our mowers from scalping the green, along with all the other benefits.

Productive Monday

Today was a good day, We finally got a full days work done without the rain interrupting us. June hasn't been great weather wise so far to say the least! Hopefully it will take a turn and everyone can get started playing some summer golf. We got everything mowed on the golf course today accept some of the rough, we also pencil-tined greens with a solid tine to relieve compaction, this process is very beneficial and should be unnoticeable by the end of the week.

Busy Tuesday

We achieved a lot on the golf course today, particularly on the greens. Poa Annua, the species of grass that is on our greens produces a seed head at this time of year. Chemicals are sprayed earlier in the year to suppress the seed head but some always still appear. Today was all about reducing the amount of seed heads on our greens. We started the morning by brushing to present the seed head. We followed that by verticutting 1mm below the surface. We then blew off the seed heads and organic matter that was left on the surface and followed that by mowing the greens. We then finished off by top dressing and dragging the greens. 

Fertilising Fairways and Approaches

Today we fertilised all our fairways and approaches with a granular 28 - 3 - 10 Andersons product, we used our Vicon tractor mounted spreader for the fairways and a Scotts walk behind spreader for the approaches. The product is slow releasing and should provide fertility for about 5 months.

April Showers Bring Forth May Flowers

Unfortunately we've been getting a lot more than a few showers, the total rainfall recorded at Citywest for April was 111mm, the national average rainfall for April in past years is 51mm. We received almost that amount last Wednesday and Thursday, the pictures below are from Thursday morning. Needless to say the course is very wet and a little muddy as a result. We are doing our best to make sure the course dries out as soon as possible by ensuring our drains are all clean and working correctly, slit-tining fairways to relieve compaction and applying extra sand to wear areas etc. Hopefully Mother Nature is kinder in May!

Top dressing greens

Top dressing greens is a necessary evil, as it may irritate our members to putt on the sandy surfaces on the day of the application, but we can assure you this process is absolutely necessary and it greatly benefits our greens. Regular top dressing helps produce a smooth firm putting surface. The sand protects the crown of the plant which allows for reduced mowing heights. It also reduces the thatch layer.

We lightly top dressed all of our greens today, it was a lovely dry day and the sand brushed into the surface nicely, it should be virtually unnoticeable tomorrow.

Fixing drainage and expanding no. 5 tee

Today we replaced all the sod and installed a drain between the championship tee and members tee on no. 5. The area was wet all winter and the soil had become very soggy, we removed all the old sod and dug out the sodden soil. We then installed a drain leading to the adjacent ditch. Next we levelled out the area with sand, put down an organic fertiliser and laid the new sod. We will gradually decrease the height we mow the new sod until its at the same height as the rest of the tee. This will give us around 5 yards extra teeing ground.

Spring clean!

As we approach the start of the golfing season we are making a big effort to get through essential maintenance on the golf course including the painting of all marker boards and tee markers, cleaning yardage markers, restoring the streams on 16 and 18 and cleaning lakes etc. so when summer comes around we can focus on mowing grass. We have also started trimming back hedges bordering pathways and cleaning out the wooded areas.

                                                                                        

                                                      
                                                 




                                                 

                                                    

Pencil tining

Today we pencil tined all of our greens. In this process we remove a small core from the greens using our tractor mounted hollow corer. There are many benefits to this process, it relieves soil compaction, creates more air space in the soil and controls organic matter. The next step is to top dress the greens with new sand, filling in all the holes. As we chose only to take a small core, we expect the greens to recover quickly.

New bunkers and Tee box

This week we created two new bunkers on the golf course, one at the back of the 6th green and the other at the back of the 10th green. The soil that we took from these two areas was used to make a small championship tee box on the 15th hole, a project that will be finished next week.

Slit tining greens

We slit tined our greens today. This process has many advantages, regular slit tining breaks up soil compaction and provides optimal conditions for healthy root growth, cutting thousands of roots and in turn promoting thousands more to grow. It also increases air movement within the soil, which is essential for healthy turf.

Re-sodding No. 4 green

This week we started the project of re-sodding the 4th green. Over time the plant has thinned out and moss had started to creep into the green. This is due to the lack of sunlight the green receives and the poor air movement in the area. The large evergreen trees behind the green block out the sun completely in winter months and stop air circulation. In the near future we plan to greatly reduce the height of these trees.
We started by removing the old sod from the the green, raking the area and applying an organic fertiliser. We then began to lay the new sod which was taken from the old 11th green on the lakes course. The project will be finished early this week and we hope to have the new green ready for play at the start of the golfing season.