Be careful what you wish for!

Well, it's been a while and firstly I would like to apologise for my absence but we have had a busy period of works on the course and beautiful new baby arriving at home has made life a bit interesting. I normally try to do these blogs in the evenings at home but with time being against me, I am writing this one in the office and as I look out I can see leaves falling like rain.

Looking forward to these leaves falling 

The last blog/ vlogs and greens presentation night I explained how desperate we were for rain. Well be careful for what you wish for!  Since my last video blog in September and the presentation night we have had 88m in the last 20 days of September, 139mm in October with only two dry days in the month and 43mm so far in November (7th Nov). Thats alot of rain and 270mm in just over eight weeks. That's more rain than the previous six months...
Currently we are still well behind 2018 rainfall wise. 665mm to date v 978mm in 2018. Both considered drought years in the summer and then seriously wet periods. In 2018 it was the wet spring before the heat, 2018 was a dry winter and the dry spring of 2019 but Autumn 2019 is proving that Mother Nature tries to even herself out at some point but we feel like we are going into a more European climate which is ironic with Brexit just around the corner.

Drought damage 

I think we have all seen the damage caused over the last two summers. If you compare the areas we do have water (greens,tees and aprons) to the areas we don't (fairways and surrounds) the difference has been huge, with the loss of grass coverage and bare areas being a constant battle.
It's not a simple case of running hose's to 12 hectares of land. We just don't have the water supply, labour or irrigation system to cope. The hardest part of this industry is trying to predict the weather, no matter what planning you have in place you have to rectify problems after they have happened. As the Chairman Nick Clayton has report in his update, we have been working with Hydrologists and Irrigation designers. This is slow process as research and facts are checked. The chances of a borehole seem to be all but over. The quotes we have received due to our complex geology and chances of success seem to high a risk for the club to take and it would not be fair on members to invest the money into something we are not convinced it's going to work. Other options are being explored and we are working closely with Hydrologist and Environmental Agency to find a solution. Watch this space...

Cores from greens added to Short game green 

Short game green growing in

Back to now, Course maintenance week went really well and the recovery on the greens, tees, aprons and surrounds was quick. The greens were tined with 12mm solids and the dressed. The greens were then hollow cored with 8mm micro hollow TWICE. Why so shocking? Well our intention was to only do them once as we only cored this year for us to take the core and spread them on the new chipping green. This would then mean the chipping green is made from the same grass species as our greens and would play the same. Working with Profusion it was worked out that all 18 greens should be it enough. After 18 greens we had only made halfway. So we had to go again, which I didn't mind agronomically as it was maintenance week and you only hit about 5% of the surface with each tine process but they all had to be picked up by hand again. The team were fantastic and got the job done quickly and enjoyed the team bbq at the end of the week more. The tees, aprons and surrounds were all hollow tined and collected with 16mm tines. Doing this well help aid recovery going into the winter.

PC Drainage on the 18th green

18th green 1 week after drainage 

Rope drainage: One of the best things to come out of all this rain lately is the test of the newly installed (PCD) rope drainage. This was installed on the 18th and the 1st greens during maintenance week. The difference has been noted by a lot of people. This was designed by a US University Lecturer in the turf industry Dr Ed McCoy Ohio State University, who spent ten years researching the best way to drain push up greens. These have been successfully in many clubs over the last ten years including Queenwood, Wentworth, Walton Heath, Parkstone, West Hill to name a few. All the feedback I have had is positive. We will be monitoring how these greens perform compared to the others in the coming months and will give more feedback once all the data is collected.

Scarifying fairways 

Hollow coring fairways 

Fairways

It's been another tough year fairway wise and I have never had two years in a row of drought summers. A lot of work has gone in to rectify the loss of grass coverage again. We have double hollow cored the worst affected fairways (1,6,9,11,12,14), the first core took place in August during maintenance week. At that point we carried this out to remove the dead layer thatch on the surface to allow moisture to go into the soil profile. The second core followed a deep scarify of the fairways again to remove the dead thatch layer. We have also applied a penetrant wetting agent to make the moisture get into the surface. Since then we have been around the course collecting the piles of debris/cores and removing for composting. We have over seeded the fairways by both broadcast spreader and using the Redixim 1575 overseeder. Liquid fertilisers have been added and next we will be divoting any deeper areas and granular feeding fairways. The rainfall has really helped recovery and I think we are in a better place this year compared 2018, but we still have lots of work to do.

Over seeding fairways 

Other works 

We have taken the opportunity start re-turfing areas that have died off during the summer months again. Bunker banks and worn areas around the course have been started and will be on the agenda again.

worn areas re turfed

Fertilisers have been applied to the surrounds and the worst areas over seeded.Again this work will continue throughout the winter.

You may have also noticed that we have been cutting down some of the surrounds around greens since August. The plan here is for us to have more run off areas around greens.
The long rough and heather have started to be cut down and this is something I am keen to more of once the frosts kick in.


Moving forward
The battle with leaves will be our main aim and keeping on top of the course condition as much as possible. Re turfing damaged areas and pathways are all on our list along with topping up bunkers. None of these are small tasks and take many man hours to do. We also need to do these tasks at the right time as moving tons of material over the course in its wet conditions will only cause more work when damage is caused. Working with the weather you are given and changing you plans is something we have to do in this industry daily.

Personally I am happy with how the greens have been performing but worry a lot about the drainage in some of them moving forward.
I think we can all tell how wet certain ones are and this is being highlighted even more now the two drained greens are performing so much better.
It's obvious now looking at the course, you can see how where we had water and where we do not. The loss of coverage outside of these areas dictates our working schedule but imagine how good we could be if the rest of the course looked like the greens, tees and aprons... this is something we are working on.
Damage repair and over seeding with the right grass species will be more important than ever moving forward but it will be worth it.

I will blog again soon about the Practice Ground project update and the new ladies 18th tee along with how the short game academy is developing. At the moment I am enjoying the break in lorries as we have a ten day break to allow the placement of material to be done and a survey of the levels.
We have made great progress this year and with the end of the lorries in site, I for one can't wait for it to be finished. As a club, we voted to do all of this work to be done and we all know it's going to be great when it's complete but during the process it can feel long and we all think ' Be careful what you wish for' ;-)

I hope this gives you a quick update of what's been going on.

I have loads more to catch up on and will blog again soon.

Enjoy the autumn colours

Matt