Top Dressing Fairways

The last couple of weeks has been very busy for us. We have been focusing a lot of our attention on the fairways. We started by spraying a selective herbicide which will kill the weeds on them. We have also began to Verti-drain them again, a process that is hugely beneficial to the turf by relieving compaction and allowing air circulate in the soil etc. Today we started top dressing of the fairways, we plan to put out 800 tonnes of sand on the golf course, focusing on the fairways, walk off areas and areas that are generally wet in winter. This is a big step forward for the golf course as this process has not been done in many years here. We hope to make this an annual job to keep the course moving forward. This along with Verti-draining and other drainage work we hope will make for a much dryer, cleaner golf course in winter months in the future.

New Chipping Area

This summer we started on building a chipping area at the back of the putting green. There was a decent size area between the putting green and the 6th tee box so we decided to clear the trees and make a chipping area. It will be for practicing short chips and pitches up to about 30 yards, there will also be a bunker for practicing sand shots. You can see some of the progress in the pictures below, we hope to have it open for the start of next season.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summer Work

At this time of year we are doing the same jobs day in and day out, Mowing greens, tees, approaches, fairways, rough, semi-rough, raking bunkers and setting up the course. We also have a lot of different jobs going on. At the moment we are focusing on divoting all the fairways, as you can see from the pictures below, there is a lot of them, due to the increased amount of play the course receives in the summer. We are also sodding all the bad areas in the fairways that resulted from the extremely wet winter, spraying all our spinneys with round-up and selectively spraying for weeds on the course. This morning we verticut the greens and topdressed them. We will be verticutting again next week with special units that remove more seed heads from the plant which should make the greens a little quicker and smoother.

Top Dressing and Verticutting

We got a lot of work done on the greens today. We started by verticutting them, a cultural practice which helps reduce thatch by using vertical blades that cut below the surface of the soil. It also cuts lateral growing leaves which helps promote the plant to grow up, which results in finer leaves and therefore quicker green speeds. We followed that by mowing them and then finished off with a light top dressing. We will repeat this process on a regular basis throughout the season.

New bunkers

You will be glad to know, we have just finished constructing 2 new bunkers! One on the 2nd hole just off the left side of the fairway and the other at the back of the 13th green. At the 2nd, the bunker is located around 250 yards from the white tees in a spot where a lot of wayward tee shots end up, this bunker will now call for greater accuracy from the longer hitters off the tee. On the 13th, the new bunker will catch over hit approach shots, leaving a tricky bunker shot back to a green sloping away from you. We also installed a new drain at the edge of the green on 13 which should help dry up that area.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spring Aerification

Today we began hollow tining our greens. This is the process where we take a small core from the greens and replace it with new sand. It is extremely beneficial to the turf and much called for after a long wet Winter. Tomorrow we plan to top dress the greens. Also as part of our Spring aerification programme, we plan to solid tine tees and approaches and Verti-drain fairways, which will set us up nicely for the coming season.



Severe Weather In 2012

As 2013 begins, we are hoping for a much dryer year than last. 2012 was one of the wettest years on record in Ireland, with June being the wettest ever on record. 849.5mm of rain was recorded at Dublin Airport, we also record rainfall every day at Citywest where 1099.5mm fell. As a result of this the course has been very soggy all winter. We have plans to combat this problem and to improve the conditions for next winter. These include drainage work, installing new drains in the worst affected areas, we will start this in the spring/summer when the ground is dryer. Extensive sanding of wet areas, this will improve percolation in the soil and allow water to drain faster. Verti-draining, which will help with compacted turf. We have also started to install some new paths around the course so as to keep traffic off the playing surfaces. On top of all this we are hoping for mother nature to help us out with a much dryer year ahead!