February Green's Report
Greens Report
Greens Report February
A month on from the last update and we have seen a massive change in conditions out on the course. February saw the monthly rainfall total at only 24mm, a nice change to the 88mm we had in January. The drier ground conditions have allowed us to proceed with mechanical maintenance to the greens and tees. We have also made good progress with cutting main playing areas and tidying areas up with stimming and fly mowing. Tees, surrounds and approaches have been cut every one to two weeks depending on conditions and temperatures. Fairways have had a couple of cuts in the last month, and semi rough has been tidied up with a demo machine supplied by Ripon Ground Care. We continue to cut or iron greens once a week also depending on conditions. All bunkers are raked once or twice a week at this time of year depending on the fixture list and staff holidays. Fairways have benefited greatly through the winter from members using mats or playing from the first cut of rough, although there have been reports of some members not adhering to this rule, which is a shame. You may have also noticed that we have suffered a lot of crow damage on certain fairways such as the 11th. These areas will be repaired in due course. We are relatively happy with where we are at with the condition of the course in general, when you compare it to where we were last year with the saturated conditions, we feel a few steps ahead for now going into spring. Let’s just hope these drier conditions continue as things can change very quickly!
As mentioned earlier the kind weather conditions have allowed us to undertake some much needed maintenance on greens and tees. All greens and approaches have been Vertidrained with 12mm tines, greens to a depth of 10 inches and approaches to 6 inches. This excluded the 10th green, as the drainage system in this green is shallow, so we vertidrained the 10th at 6 inches to prevent damaging the drains. We also left the 7th green alone as we felt it was too early after installing the new drainage system and felt it may cause the drain runs to sink in places. Vertidraining helps improve surface drainage, helps aid thatch breakdown and allows air into the profile which all improves root depth. We applied an application of rocastem to the greens which is a form of liquid aerator and a product called strength, which contains potassium, this strengthens up the plant and helps it fight against stress and disease. The 7th green has been scarified to a depth of 5mm, this helps clean up the surface and remove thatch material from below. We then cleared the green and followed up with our dyna corer units, which take out small cores, this process allows air and water to reach the rootzone, removes thatch and relives compaction. The green was then cleared of the cores using our rotary brushes which fit onto one of our triple mowers. Once the surface was clean we then overseeded the green with fescue seed using a small walk behind spreader. The final job was to add a light application of topdressing sand, we then worked the sand and seed into the holes and grooves created from coring and scarifiying. The sand was worked in using a dragmat. Hopefully we will now see the disease scars fill in over the next month or so. All main greens and practice greens have also been scarified to a depth of 5mm to clean up the surface and remove some thatch. We followed this up with a light dressing of sand and worked it into the surface using our rotary brushes. After the scarifiying, topdressing and brushing, the greens were then ironed. A few days later we applied a low nitrogen, organic granular fertilizer to all of the greens, this will help strengthen them up as we head through spring. An application of liquid iron was also sprayed out onto the greens to help prevent any disease flaring up after the stresses of scarifiying. As the weather stayed relatively dry, we decided to continue with the scarifiers and concentrated on the tees to prepare them for the start of the season. Tees were scarified slightly deeper at around 7mm then lightly topdressed and brushed in. We will repeat this on all of the approaches. There will also be a granular fertilizer applied to both tees and approaches. We hope to have summer tees back in play by the start of April all depending on conditions.
Other jobs have been completed during the last few weeks such as raking out tree lines of leaves, pine needles and debris that have accumulated over the winter months. This not only improves playability and appearance around the course but also prevents mowers blunting or even becoming damaged. All paths have now been topped with shale where required. A handful of winter mats on the 9 hole academy course have been replaced with fresh matting as some had torn and a couple had become unlevel due to moles tunneling below them. All ditches have now been strimmed and cleared of debris, providing an open free flowing area for our drainage systems to drain away into. Three dead trees have also been felled at the end of the short game area and a fallen tree to the right of the 2nd green on the 9 hole course has also been removed.
Hoops and ropes will remain in place for now and will be brought back in gradually when we feel conditions allow. We are still seeing many hoops and ropes not being replaced when moved by golfers. Please replace any hoops and ropes that you remove when needed to play a shot. We ask all golfers to continue repairing pitchmarks.
We would like to thank Chris Megginson for his efforts on negotiating a deal for a new tractor mounted trencher which is due for delivery in September. The trencher will allow us to continue adding to our new drainage system and in turn improve the playability of the course during wetter periods. The trencher will also speed up the process of our planned drainage work allowing us to drain many more areas in a shorter space of time.
Thanks Greens.
A month on from the last update and we have seen a massive change in conditions out on the course. February saw the monthly rainfall total at only 24mm, a nice change to the 88mm we had in January. The drier ground conditions have allowed us to proceed with mechanical maintenance to the greens and tees. We have also made good progress with cutting main playing areas and tidying areas up with stimming and fly mowing. Tees, surrounds and approaches have been cut every one to two weeks depending on conditions and temperatures. Fairways have had a couple of cuts in the last month, and semi rough has been tidied up with a demo machine supplied by Ripon Ground Care. We continue to cut or iron greens once a week also depending on conditions. All bunkers are raked once or twice a week at this time of year depending on the fixture list and staff holidays. Fairways have benefited greatly through the winter from members using mats or playing from the first cut of rough, although there have been reports of some members not adhering to this rule, which is a shame. You may have also noticed that we have suffered a lot of crow damage on certain fairways such as the 11th. These areas will be repaired in due course. We are relatively happy with where we are at with the condition of the course in general, when you compare it to where we were last year with the saturated conditions, we feel a few steps ahead for now going into spring. Let’s just hope these drier conditions continue as things can change very quickly!
As mentioned earlier the kind weather conditions have allowed us to undertake some much needed maintenance on greens and tees. All greens and approaches have been Vertidrained with 12mm tines, greens to a depth of 10 inches and approaches to 6 inches. This excluded the 10th green, as the drainage system in this green is shallow, so we vertidrained the 10th at 6 inches to prevent damaging the drains. We also left the 7th green alone as we felt it was too early after installing the new drainage system and felt it may cause the drain runs to sink in places. Vertidraining helps improve surface drainage, helps aid thatch breakdown and allows air into the profile which all improves root depth. We applied an application of rocastem to the greens which is a form of liquid aerator and a product called strength, which contains potassium, this strengthens up the plant and helps it fight against stress and disease. The 7th green has been scarified to a depth of 5mm, this helps clean up the surface and remove thatch material from below. We then cleared the green and followed up with our dyna corer units, which take out small cores, this process allows air and water to reach the rootzone, removes thatch and relives compaction. The green was then cleared of the cores using our rotary brushes which fit onto one of our triple mowers. Once the surface was clean we then overseeded the green with fescue seed using a small walk behind spreader. The final job was to add a light application of topdressing sand, we then worked the sand and seed into the holes and grooves created from coring and scarifiying. The sand was worked in using a dragmat. Hopefully we will now see the disease scars fill in over the next month or so. All main greens and practice greens have also been scarified to a depth of 5mm to clean up the surface and remove some thatch. We followed this up with a light dressing of sand and worked it into the surface using our rotary brushes. After the scarifiying, topdressing and brushing, the greens were then ironed. A few days later we applied a low nitrogen, organic granular fertilizer to all of the greens, this will help strengthen them up as we head through spring. An application of liquid iron was also sprayed out onto the greens to help prevent any disease flaring up after the stresses of scarifiying. As the weather stayed relatively dry, we decided to continue with the scarifiers and concentrated on the tees to prepare them for the start of the season. Tees were scarified slightly deeper at around 7mm then lightly topdressed and brushed in. We will repeat this on all of the approaches. There will also be a granular fertilizer applied to both tees and approaches. We hope to have summer tees back in play by the start of April all depending on conditions.
Other jobs have been completed during the last few weeks such as raking out tree lines of leaves, pine needles and debris that have accumulated over the winter months. This not only improves playability and appearance around the course but also prevents mowers blunting or even becoming damaged. All paths have now been topped with shale where required. A handful of winter mats on the 9 hole academy course have been replaced with fresh matting as some had torn and a couple had become unlevel due to moles tunneling below them. All ditches have now been strimmed and cleared of debris, providing an open free flowing area for our drainage systems to drain away into. Three dead trees have also been felled at the end of the short game area and a fallen tree to the right of the 2nd green on the 9 hole course has also been removed.
Hoops and ropes will remain in place for now and will be brought back in gradually when we feel conditions allow. We are still seeing many hoops and ropes not being replaced when moved by golfers. Please replace any hoops and ropes that you remove when needed to play a shot. We ask all golfers to continue repairing pitchmarks.
We would like to thank Chris Megginson for his efforts on negotiating a deal for a new tractor mounted trencher which is due for delivery in September. The trencher will allow us to continue adding to our new drainage system and in turn improve the playability of the course during wetter periods. The trencher will also speed up the process of our planned drainage work allowing us to drain many more areas in a shorter space of time.
Thanks Greens.