Lockdown 2: The end of the strange year

   Hi All,

 

As we have come to end of the year and our second lock down of the year, only 3 weeks and six days this one! I thought I’d update you on what’s been going out on the course while we’ve been closed. 

As mentioned in my previous blog things have been very, very busy. 

Things had dried out a little in the first few days of December but unfortunately the wet is now in the soil profile and some damage has been caused getting heavy machines around the course to carry out Winter projects. This will be repaired as we go into the coming weeks. Unfortunately sometimes we have to get things done because of time limits, contractor availability and budgets. As you may have seen some areas have been affected especially the 18th, the 10th, right of 12th/rear of 14th and the 4th carry but these will heal and the positive is the work is done. 

Return from Lockdown 

 This will not be like the last lockdown. Members returned as the course had come into life and was drying out nicely. Warm weather bought growth and we were able to increase presentation. Golfers had the chance to play in summer conditions. Now we are entering our dark days of winter. Leaves falling and worm casts (now a huge problem for us and the industry since the treatments have been revoked). Our man hours now being aimed at leaves, over seeding and aeration. Presentation is limited to when conditions are good. The wet spell has stopped for a brief rest bite but now we are having frosts. This in turn reduces the amount of presentation work we can do. You can’t cut frozen ground! 

 

Heights of cut on greens and short cut turf areas have been raised for winter protection. This is done to aid the plant. With less daylight hours means less growth and lower temperatures. Giving the plant a slightly longer leaf (2mm increase) allows the plants to photosynthesise. This will gather more sunlight during those short days and turn this into energy. 

Even if we aren’t seeing top growth the energy will be going into the plants roots looking for food. Think of a satellite expanding its solar panels during the winter to increase energy to keep it going. It’s a long time until the days get long enough for us to turn this the other way. 

 The other issue for us at this time of year is Diseases on the turf. The cool season diseases like Fusarium or Microdochium Nivale to us are harder to control now again due to the withdrawal of some of the products.  We are always learning more and looking at different ideas to reduce the disease pressure. 

One of the big issues at this time of year is leaf wetness. A dew could form around 3pm and keep coming down all evening and stay on the plant all night. We then come in at 6am and dewie this off (brush or switch cane). It can then reform again around 9am... this cycle continues. What we actually like for the greens is a slight wind. We don’t however like this for the leaves... I am never happy! 

 Remember the soils have all these pathogens in them all the time. It’s not bought in on foot or anything else you might of heard. It’s always present in the soils but needs the right conditions to ignite it.

A host, humidity, moisture, low air or high Organic matter within the soil all contribute. If you take one of these elements away it will reduce the disease chances of becoming an issue. 

So far we have been able to keep most of it at bay but have been due to the conditions been under a daily attacks and the team have been doing all they can to reduce this. 

All our work on aeration to reduce organic matter, improve air and drainage, along with the added drainage works, top dressing, over seeding with different grass species, applications of natural defences, wetting agents and reviewing our GDD (Growth Degree Days) along with manual works like rolling, switching and dewie-ing to remove the surface moisture are all aimed at disease prevention or at least reduction. 

 Although I am painting a depressing picture I promise it’s not all bad. In fact it’s actually quite positive. We have achieved so much. Some you won’t see until spring by the time it comes through and some the impacts can be seen now. 

Let’s talk about each area first. 

 

The Driving Range Project

 

As most if you know we have been beaten by both the weather and the economy with the range project. 

Our time scales originally showed us finishing by November or the latest December. Especially the outfield. The rain that fell in a six week period was record breaking and trying to move heavy machines, lorry’s and import materials meant this came to a grinding halt. Looking at the time scales we had lost about seven weeks. 

Losing seven weeks going into the winter period is hard to get back when you are dealing with virgin ground. It needs to be solid and once wet, it can take months to dry out. It would be easy to say the seven weeks was caused by the Lock down in March but reality was we kept going during that lockdown. 

The first two weeks we had no lorries at all but then the numbers picked up. The truth is the lorry numbers to achieve our levels required never really recovered from that point on. 

We had some busy days without doubt but in 2019 we would average over 75 per day. 2020 is around 49 per day and that over 7 months has a big impact. 

What has been achieved though is great and I am pleased we got so much done towards the end of the year. As you will have seen if you’ve been down on the Short game area is that the outside hitting mats are now in place. 

 

Four of the five Astro Turf greens are now finished and one grass green at the back is growing in. The plan is to have eight greens in total. 

The Astro turf greens are actually called “The South West Greens Premium Performance Target System” this has an upgraded Cushion and fringes, helping the ball react better than normal Astro turf. Adding the collar gives the greens the definition all year round and makes it easier for us to tie in the cutting into the green area. 

We will have five bunkers on the range and these are now made from Astro turf to reduce maintenance and to look visually sharp. This wasn’t an easy task as we wanted them to look similar to the course bunkers. The bunkers that South West Greens would normally build would be fairly round but we wanted movement. 

The edge of the bunkers is a drainage pipe instead of revet turf. This is then filled and pinned into the ground and the Astro turf is laid over it and glued under the pipe to give a real grass look. 

We pushed the limits of the flex in the pipe and made cuts to get our angles and are more than happy with the finished look.

Next we wanted to tone down the white Astro turf and make it look more natural. At the moment you will see different styles and ideas. 

1.     Our bunker sand filled to give colour but would require work.

2.     A half sand/ Half Astro mix but this needs working in to the profile when dry. 

3.     A normal white Astro turf

4.     A white Astro turf with sand infill. We will be adding the kiln dried sand to in the summer (like the greens). 

 We will work on the final look in the summer when it’s dry and we can work some natural sand into the profile of the Astro turf and I will let you know which one of the above is the winner. 

You may have noticed the start of the foundation works for the actual range building. This is going to be a great facility for the club with a teaching studio that can be both indoor and out. Teaching bays for the Pro shop team to improve our games, hitting bays for members to practice, ball dispenser machine, a garage area at the back to hold the ball collection system, ball washing and machinery required to collect the balls. All housed within the garage area at the back of the building. 

 I have been asked why we dug out the area so deep. Well actually the hollow you can see is the area that hasn’t been filled completely yet but it has had some fill, this shows you just how much the range has changed. 

The holes you can see are the foundations built up from the natural clay that was under the old range. We will now phase the last of the materials through this are and once to an agreed level the builder will add the steels and build up to a suspended base that ties into the natural clay underneath. This will mean any settlement over time will not affect the building. 

 The team building the range building are the same team who built Winchester Driving Range (plus hundreds of others) but locally that’s one you can visit to see the type of facility we are going to have. 

 I think now we can also see how the range outfield will look and it’s going to be fantastic. I for one can’t wait to get this finished. All my hopes of a December finish have been dashed but I know we are so close to the finish line it won’t take long. At least we will be growing the remainder of the seed in warmer temperatures and will have one of the best facilities in the UK. 

 

The Tree Planting 

 

Also during lock down 2 we managed to get the trees planted around the range. This first stage of planting consisted of the larger root balled trees. This is mainly a mix of Scotts Pine (Pinus Sylvestris), Pinus Nigra, Copper Beech (Fagus Sylvatica) and a London Plane (Plantus Hispanica) plus a large English Oak (Quercus Robour, to be delivered). 

The sizes range between 3/4.5 meters high to 5+m and 2 x Pine at 10m high. Some of these were so large they needed to be delivered on their own lorry. One tree per lorry!! Mad to see. 

There are two reasons why we have started with the Pines. The Pine give us all year round colour and protection. They give an instant impact of the tree line and due to restrictions on what trees we can now buy and move due to a change in zones because of the Oak Processionary moth (This a moth that as caterpillars can cause serious damage to Oak trees)and now prevent us from buying large Oak trees from the wholesalers. We also do have a core of pines throughout the course and to the right of the range. 

 The amount of damage caused to get the trees out on the course has been high but it will repair. The damage can be seen right of the 18th. Boards were used to cross fairways but these couldn’t be used to climb the banks of the range as it was just too wet. The pressure on planting was on as the trees needed planting in Autumn, the contractors are fully booked up to a year in advance and we need the tree line in play for us to be able to finish the area and open the range. 

 We have 22 small bare rooted varieties coming in December to plant amongst the new pines these will include some small Oaks (that will be inspected before transport) lime, beech etc. We are also planning to tree spade 20+ trees from within the golf course. This has been put back until Autumn 2021 due to how wet the site is and we need the outfield fully grassed in as they will need to plant from the range itself on a flat surface. Watch this space! 

 With regard to the damage caused by moving the trees and materials around the course, our plan is to seed areas for recovery. These will be the areas further down that will be mown as semi rough and rough.  We will turf some of the damage by the 18th Apron, introduce Heather and some Gorse into other areas higher up the banking’s (especially 18th) we don’t want it too easy for you do we :-) 

 

1st Hole 

 Unfortunately the carry on the 1st hole also became victim to the weather and slower season. We lifted the turf from the fairway and stored it right of the 2nd as I was told the fill would be completed in 2 days and then Profusion could start the drainage, rootzone and shaping process. As the weather got worse the soils became too wet and we weren’t able to start the drainage process and now will have to wait until the spring when it dries out.

 I found this very frustrating if I am honest. We spent many man hours lifting the fairway turf to be put back down so we would let get a seam in the fairway. This turf wouldn’t survive the winter without re rooting so the team have been out re turfing weak areas with it. We will use the remaining turf repairing damage caused by the construction around the course along with seed in out of play areas. 

 Comfort Station and 10th tee area 

 Another project which has been running alongside the range in the last couple of months is the comfort station (or halfway hut). You will have seen the new pad area to the rear of the 10th and now hopefully the new look pathways around that area. This was one of those projects that one thing led to another but I know will be a huge improvement for the club in the long term. Short term pain for long term gain. 

 This project started way back in 2019 with Trish Thorley and Sandy Wiswould, along with Richard Arnold and Myself. We looked at all different types of halfway hut/ stations. We had different designs done by Mark Cox. The costs were high for a new build but the MC thought this was an important thing for you the members to have a decent facilities on the course. At this point I would like to say a special thanks goes to Trish and Sandy!

 After looking at all the options, the MC asked Andy Cheesewright to take the lead on this project. Andy bought Ray Sheehan into give his advice and help us with the project. 

 Andy and Ray came back with a great idea, instead of building a building from scratch and at very high cost we could buy a purpose built facility. Ray could then design and add a kitchen area and this could be bought in and placed at the 10th. We then looked into the waste aspect of having a toilet on the course and one that would be hard to access in the winter. The answer to this after speaking to other clubs that have tried many different things good and bad was a treatment system built to the side of the unit. 

This would need power, as it would be working all the time, plus members using the facilities would want to have a light in the toilet in the winter months and not a non-stop engine running if a generator was used instead, especially if you take into account the fuel costs and the environmental impacts. 

 So what has been done:- 

 The Building- 

The Comfort station has been purchased and built and I must say it looks great and once Ray has worked his magic it will be a great facility. 

Trench for the cable from the clubhouse to 10th tee

 Power-

We asked Paul Barnard to help us spec and install the electricity. This had to go 500 metres down the 18th hole and through the pathway and back up to the new pad at the rear of the 10th. The bridge on the 10th/ 18th pathway wouldn’t allow us to bury the cable so we had to Construct a new bridge and raise the entire pathway up to compensate for this. The bonus is the pathway needed to be improved and has now and less steep than it was previously. 

It made sense to trench down 18th where the damage from the trees installation was done as this meant the area could be repaired and wouldn’t mean another area getting damaged. This has now been completed. The team will turf and over seed this in the coming days and we ask you don’t walk on it. 

 Water- 

Water was trenched back up from the end of the 10th pathway, where the water pipe for the drinking fountains goes. 

 The Base- 

The pad at the rear of the 10th was cleared and was obvious straight away we didn’t have enough soil to build the base to the level we required so after trying to move the soil from behind the 10th green (which came from the wetland project) was to wet to move we used a Borrow Pitt from the woods at the 9th and moved this over to build the base. This borrow Pitt can be left as a feature in the woods or filled in at some point in the future but I actually think it looks great and should hold a bit of water which would encourage wildlife and is out of play. 

A membrane was then added and 200mm of Type 1 was added to build the base. As the building is surrounded in Rhododendrons we transplanted some over and added to the banks to give this a natural feel. 

 10th Tee area - 

Due to the damage in the area and the fact that the area around the 10th was so visually poor and was commented on by many guests from within the industry we decided to use this opportunity to improve the area. A grass pathway has been added to the right of the 9th green should you hit that way. Replacing the old washed out path. 

A new pathway route has been installed and mounding to hide the pathways and break up the view from the 9th green. The mounding and area around the comfort station will have heather added to it in January to finish this off. In 2021 it is planned to Tarmac the pathways around the 10th. A patio area will be built in front of the building to be used for seating on those big days. 

 Lifting Trees- 

Buying the building as one unit is a great idea. One of the challenges is getting the building out onto the course. 

After site meetings with the transport team from the company we have bought the building from they asked us to lift the tree line on the greenkeepers track to 14ft all the way round. So this has been another task that has been completed a head of the install. It’s something that was probably over due from our prospective but it’s hard to justify spending time and money on the “greenkeepers track” when we have so much to sort out as a club. 

The Treatment System

 It is planned the treatment system will be install in the New Year and hopefully ready for spring. The final installation works will the take place and the building delivered and hooked up once the ground is dry enough. 

 Some temporary damage had been caused as the green staff ran out over 200 tonnes of materials for the project but all the major works for this project apart from getting the building out are done. The recovery in these areas can continue all winter/spring and will be fine for the season ahead. I think this is the start of an amazing addition to the club! 

 Conclusion

 As you can see we have been very busy, especially during lock down. The team have worked fantastically throughout the year and two lockdowns. They have had to work differently and adapt like many of you. Team briefings taking place over whatsapp, different start times all year and being flexible in the working day.

All the way through, including the small teams due to furlough, the range project, the greens drainage, the leaf battles, the maintenance weeks, the Tournament’s they have been a credit to the club and you the members. I can’t thank them enough for their hard work. 

 Not only our team but the office staff and Pro Shop have had to adapt too. The clubhouse team, I feel for the most as it’s been a stop, start year and new challenges daily. 

The MC and Captains committee have all worked hard to keep members safe and to keep the club going. 

 It’s been a strange year and as you can see from above we still achieved so much. Never has been a better time to be a member of Stoneham Golf Club with what’s coming to the club in the future. 

I can tell you the world of golf is watching. Justin Rose is liking our tweets and the golf industry are asking how we are doing what we are doing. Be proud to be a member of this club. We have gone through so much this year. The damage will repair, the wet and cold will go and golf in the sunshine will return and we will have a new comfort station, a new range and great golf course! 

 

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas. Stay safe and let’s hope 2021 is a year to celebrate! 

 

Matt 

 

 

 

 

Lockdown 2 - A different feeling

Hi All,

 

 

 

I had all these great ideas for blogs and vlog updates in the last couple of months.  I started to make some videos but due to the pace of the amount of work being done it’s always so far behind when I come to editing or even when writing a blog. Always seemed pointless as things had changed again. I am not going to let that stop me anymore but I can’t believe I am writing another blog during lockdown... another one! 

 

Lockdown2 is different if I am honest, for me personally not a lot has changed. I am still coming to the club to work daily, the kids are at school or nursery. Having young children means I don’t go out anymore :) so I am not even doing that at this stage in our lives. Our evenings and weekends are normally taken up by beach walks, parks and walks in the forest. All of these are still open.

 

It does make me question why golf is now closed ? 

 

Golf is one of the safest sports you can play. It’s a great walk and social distance is never a problem. Even now measuring out the outside hitting bays on the range project. It’s 2.5 meters between players, because that’s the hitting mat sizes to give you room to swing. 

For me and others in the industry we realise this is a political and traffic issue and not a safety issue. Imagine being the government during the pandemic that allowed only hunting, golf and tennis and not football! 

The argument could be that this should reduce essential travel. For example we as a club with 5,488 rounds available during this lockdown will reduce roughly 10,000 car journeys. Imagine that for all golf clubs in England and the risk it reduces of people going to get petrol, stopping at shops, accidents for the emergency services to deal with etc. 

 

29mm of Rain and flooding up

 

 

The only bonus I can take from golf course side is the course is getting a rest. The damage following one of the wettest October’s and out wettest month ever since we started recording weather all those years ago. 226mm of rain fell over ever square inch of the golf course. That’s a lot of water. 

On top of this we tried to stay open towards the end when we shouldn’t have because we knew lockdown was coming and we would be able to get some recovery. This will get harder as we go into winter. 

As I sit and write this blog we’ve just had 29mm of rain on Saturday alone and it’s still raining this Sunday morning. Make no mistake the course is very, very wet in places. This is hindering so much work both on the course and on the range project. 

I know the course isn’t playable at the moment and we would be closed. 

So the good news is due to the awful amount of rain you are not missing much! 

 

Graph from M.Hunt showing 10 years of growth and the warmer years

 

Without doubt every year we seem to be breaking records. This maybe the hottest years on record (three of the last five are in the all time hottest top five), the wettest months keep breaking with images of flash flooding now becoming a scene we see regularly on the TV. The heaviest rainfall in a 24hr period. The climate has definitely changed even in my 25 years in the industry. We tend to get more extreme weather, hot and no rain and then periods of heavy rain as Mother Nature evens things up. It’s a more Mediterranean feel to it. Big down pours, less actually rain days but more rain when it comes. This makes sense to why we are draining greens for example. These will still flood because the infiltration rates are still lower than the rain rate but it’s about quicker recovery and being firmer the other side of the downpour. We really are seeing the benefit of the investment now. Out of the six wettest greens we have drained so fair they are the ones we can mow first now after the rainfall. More gulley pots and  runoffs have been added along with fairway drainage and more will need to be added. 

Irrigation and water are the other way. These high temperature summers with long periods of drought cause the grass plant to die. We need to build an infrastructure that can cope with modern weather patterns and having irrigation across the course to stop us losing grass coverage is a must and something we are working on very hard in the background. 

 

Going forward 

 

My worry going forward is how busy we will be after lockdown is lifted and golfers can finally get back out. Last time we are the weather on our side, dry and recovery was good. The levels of compaction last time due to how busy the course got was frightening and this time we will get just as busy. 

We are a full membership with a waiting list and that’s before the range opens. I think this will bring another surge of people wanting to become members. 

The downside is the weather will be going into is coldest months and recovery will not happen until spring. We will need to be tough on roping off areas and managing the traffic through the course. We will need to protect it sometimes too but this lockdown gives us a chance to rest the course and be ready and to get a lot of work done. To get things in place for the spring and the following year. 

 

The Course  

 

Due the record breaking wet October we decided to postpone the hollow coring of the fairways until spring (if needed). The damage caused would have been to great but the good news is the green staff have been able to get on a get loads of work done around the course. 

 

At this time we have decided not to furlough any of the green staff. We are probably busier now than in the summer. If you think of farming, if we don’t do the work now it won’t be in place for the spring  and we would have no crop and our crop is grass. Add to this the pressure of the leaves coming down (1000 man hours every year) the fact we couldn’t hollow core fairways so we are trying to aerate in house, staff holidays and allowing for people to be off in isolation plus all the projects going on. 

We are busy, busy, busy! 

 

Grow sheets being used to improve surrounds following seeding

 

 

Day one of Lockdown 2 and the staff had to remove all course furniture. This is to stop theft and trespassing. We then secured around the clubhouse and car park, even having to put a new post box up ready for the clubs mail. 

This was less stressful than before, we had done it before and we had more time, we understand more about the pandemic and we know the club are in a good position. Before it felt strange with the weather being amazing and the car park empty. It doesn’t feel the same in the wet, it’s almost what happens during the winter months. We still miss those smiling faces, quick conversations and laughter with the members and staff but it doesn’t feel like before. We know you are coming back and can’t wait but we know your coming! 

 

The aim straight away was to divot tees and around greens and aprons. I wanted as much recovery as we could get before we opened. 

 

We carried on with the aeration on fairways and now have completed the fairways twice with 19mm solid tines. 

8mm tine x 1.5 inch

 

 

We also aerated the greens at 1.5 inch settings. Something we have never done. This basically is a tighter spacing between the tine holes, meaning more of the surface area is hit and more air into the surface. We don’t normally do this as it took four days to complete (frost delays added in). We normally aim for one or two days. It also makes the surface a little soft, which we couldn’t get a way with during normal play. 

 

We have also over seeded fairways in two directions on most fairways. We have applied a Dwarf Rye again following the success of last two seasons seed. Even though it looked like we had lost it in the summer, it proved it had just gone dormant and as soon as we got rain it greened up and recovered. Pretty amazing really. This is the grass species I think we will see emerge first. The second way we used a Hard Fescue, Creeping Fescue and Chewings Fescue mix. This was after consultation with seed experts who visited the site during the year and we looked all the species that had survived the last three years and tried to get a mix that would thicken the fairways back up following the 2018 drought. I expect these species to establish in spring next year. 

 

 

We have also take the opportunity to hollow core some of the worst areas of fairways, collect, broadcast over seed and topdress before running the seeder over in two directions. We will fertilise all the fairways with a granular feed go try and establish as much of this grass as possible. We intended to do this during lock down and we may start selected areas but one of our big issues now is the amount of leaves coming down. These are obviously covering the site and we will now wait until all the leaves are down in most areas before applying as we don’t want to blow it or sweep the fertiliser off the surfaces. We have gone with a 6 month base fertiliser that will just trickle away for six months and hopefully get us back to full establishment. For those interested this works by each fertiliser prill being covered in one of three different coatings. Each coating breaks down in different temperatures and moisture levels. So the first hit we get comes from a quick release granule and last about two months. Once this breaks down the next coating has weathered and started the same process until all three have fully broken down. Anyway, thats enough from me about fertilisers. 

 

Top dressing sitting on surface at 1st

 

 

Woodland work 

 

 

Spider cherry picker being used to lift trees ahead of Halfway hut

 

When you return you may notice some woodland work has been carried out around the site. Lifting of the lower branches to 14ft along the Greenkeepers track at the 1st (relief for all of us that regularly hit it out there and have to thread the ball back into play!), this hasn’t been done with golf in mind but the delivery of the new halfway just that is delivered as one unit in the back of a lorry and we needed 14ft clearance to get the unit out to the course.  Next we will start to trench utilities down the 18th to the new area at the 10th halfway hut. It is hoped we will get this area built during lock down. We then will wait for the spring or a dry period to allow us to transport the halfway hut into position on the back of a lorry. I can confirm no lorries can get out there at the moment!! 

 

Amphibian Digger arriving for one weeks work

We have also done some major clearance of scrub and Rhododendrons in the bowl on the 18th. This will give us chance to survey the area to see if it could help us in anyway with water storage. To do this because the area is so wet we had to hire an amphibian digger. There are only a few if these in the country but the grapple on this made removing the Rhododendron and scrub easier. 

 

 

From Monday the delivery of our trees as part of the driving range project will arrive and the planting will begin. I will post photos of low loaders full of good size trees arrive. Exciting stuff!

 

Conclusion 

 

 

 

As you can see the team have been busy since lockdown started and the battle with leaves is hotting up. We have cut most surfaces once due to the wetness and have started cutting greens by hand mowers. The battle keep on top of disease is also on going. Our aim now is to get as much seed out and projects done as we can and intend to up the presentation if this if possible before we come out of Lock down in December. It wont be quite the same as last time with the weather falling away but the team are in and working very hard for all of you. My personal thanks goes out to them.

 

I will do another blog about the Range Project as there is so much to tell you about. Also I will be publishing videos this week of works that have been getting done over the last few weeks. 

 

I will blog again with a range update and keep you informed with what’s going out on the course next week. 

 

 

 

For now I will be watching the Masters. I must say this has been a great Masters for all Greenkeepers. Seeing Augusta showing signs of wear, covered in leaves, balls plugging and “mud balls” has been quite refreshing. Even with all the investment and hundreds of staff. It’s a golf course, it has issues just like the rest of us. When we normally see it in April it’s their best time of year. We know GDD (growth wise) it’s the same as when we have Club Championships in July (with a few millions less spent on upkeep). I’ve been lucky enough to visit the site and it is amazing even in the winter but as this Masters has proved, it’s great but not perfect! 

 

Stay safe everyone, let’s get through this. 

 

Matt