September brought with it an extremely mixed bag of weather. We have seen high winds, warm temperatures, frosts and 88mm of rainfall which is well above average for September. Most of the 88mm has come mainly over 4-5 days of heavy rain. This amount of rain in a short period of time brings plenty of challenges. The main is keeping the course playable. A significant amount of time has been spent pushing standing water off greens and re-instating bunkers. The recent rain has tested the new drains, and we are pleased to report all are working well with any standing water in these areas quickly disappearing.

At the start of the month a fungicide was applied to the greens as a few greens started to show signs of disease appearing. The fungicide we sprayed helped defend the plant against disease and any further spread to the grass plants that aren’t affected. Greens also received an application of Rocastem and a liquid feed. The Rocastem product is a form of liquid aerator, and the liquid feed was applied to help greens recover and grow out any disease scars. We have sarel rolled greens to keep the surface open which allows air into the profile. We have also solid tined greens to a depth of around 3inch, again to allow air into the profile and help any surface water move down the soil profile more frequently. We also find the weight of the tiner pulls a lot of surface water out of the greens with its front roller that it sits on.

Aswell as reinstating bunkers after the heavy rain, we edged and tidied all bunkers on both courses. Reinstating bunkers can take up to 2 days to complete depending on how much and how heavy the rain has been. The process involves clearing and blowing out any debris such as leaves and brash, shovelling and pushing sand back up the bunker faces, they are then tillered to DE compact and fluff up the sand and then fully raked.

Tees received a granular fertiliser earlier in the month; this slow-release fertiliser will help strengthen tees as we head into the autumn.

During the wet weather and restricted amount of work able to be done on the course we took the chance to catch up on monthly machinery servicing. This involves greasing the machines, checking all fluid levels, checking tyre pressures and cut quality. The wet weather also gave us a chance to repair the wooden shuttering boards in the ditch across the 6th hole, many had come away from the sides and become rotten.

General cutting on main playing areas continues on the course, but as we have lower temperatures and less daylight growth has slowed a little and cutting has become a little less frequent. The height of cut on fairways has been raised and we plan to raise the height of cut on the greens in the next few days. Raising heights is very important at this time of year, it alleviates unnecessary stress on the grass plant and helps keep a denser sward during the winter months, it also prevents mowers scalping in softer ground conditions.

Some areas of long rough have been cut and collected using the Ryetec flail mower which as well as cutting down the long rough scarifies the area at the same time. We aim to continue with this when time and conditions allow. The Ryetec flail mower is also capable of picking up leaves and debris around the course.

Could we remind member to repair pitch marks. There are unacceptable amounts on several greens and with ground conditions becoming softer and less growth on the greens pitch marks are becoming a lot more obvious.

It has also come to our attention that more bunkers than usual are left unraked with feet marks. Most mornings bunkers are checked for animal scrapes or marks, we do not rake out feet marks as there are rakes provided in every bunker, so please remember to rake bunkers after playing out. Please remember drainage work on the 7th green starts the week commencing 14th October. A temporary green will be in play whist this work is in progress and after completion until the green has recovered.



Finally, a thanks to Barry Dixon for his work upkeeping the driving range area.



Thanks

Greens Team