Lockdown 3.0... So far

Hi All, 

To say I am at my desk a little perplexed writing this blog would be an understatement.  I think we all felt a Lockdown was inevitable following the Christmas period but I was convinced golf would still be allowed. I felt the governing bodies had put a strong case about the health benefits of golf to the government. Golf in Scotland has continued and even after the 2^nd phase when things got stricter for many, golf has continued north of the border. Unfortunately in England and Wales this wasn’t supported, even though we know it’s one of the safest sports you can play during these testing times but looking at the numbers right now, I think we all can see how serious this is and if we need to stay at home let’s do it January into February when the weather is cold and awful so we can let the vaccines catch up and enjoy the spring and summer and hopefully get back to some kind of normal again.  

 

2020 was a difficult and challenging year but I was immensely proud of the way the team at the club handled the situation and adapting to keep members and each other safe. Golf boomed in 2020 as people looked for a safe sanctuary. We are now full as a golf club with a large waiting list. I think this will only increase when the range opens and we have the complete member experience. The club are investing in the members and for the members. The future of the club will be stronger than ever once this all fades from memory but for now we are very close to things being what we would have said was “normal” but now I will say “great” again.

 

Unfortunately the weather following the second lockdown made things hard for us as the course was just full. The water table was high and the rainfall very high following a dry May and June. Luckily over Christmas the frosts kicked in and allowed the course some drying time. Please remember we only close the course if we have too. We never want to do this but with all the golf trying to be played because of the situation we have to protect the course and your safety sometimes. Hopefully things will improve weather wise, as the days get longer now this helps the drying of the grass plant. We will have wet periods but as we edge closer to spring these tend to get recover better as time goes on.   

If we look at the rainfall charts from 2018, 2019 and 2020 we can see that 2020 had another wet last quarter to the year. We had 440mm from October to December beating the previous year of 396mm and 252mm in 2018. Our average for this quarter is 265mm. Not only the quarter but the year. 2020 was our wettest year since I have been collecting data here since 2015. Not bad considering we thought it was going to be our driest at one point.

Leaf clearing has continued

Onto 2021, a very strange start to the year with six frost days already and another lockdown. The team have now got used to bringing all the course equipment in (Makers, Flags, Bins, Yardage posts and ropes etc). It’s something that I hadn’t done in my previous 25 years in the industry and I am hoping this is the last time I need to do it.

 

So what have the team been up to in 2021 so far?

 

Well, apart from removing all the course furniture (which takes longer than you think), we made a start by hitting areas of leaves again. Areas that we thought were pretty clean before we started end up with huge piles to be collected. Ditches were cleared through again to aid water leaving the course.

 

Divoting Fairways

Divoting tees

The course has been getting a full divot. Tees, Aprons, Fairways and Surrounds have all been worked on. We have a couple more to pick up in the coming week or so but our aim is to get as much seed in these divots ready for the warmer weather.   

 

Turfing on 18th hole following damage

Lots of turfing has also taken place this week. The top right of the 18^th, the area around the 10^th tee and 10^th green that was damaged due to the comfort station and wetland area projects. Tidying ends of pathways, bridges and bunker banks damaged from the summer drought which seems so long ago, especially with it being so wet now. We have returfed bunkers on the 1st, 4th, 7th, 12th.  

10th Pathway being turfed areas left for heather turfing

 

Bunker edges returfed

Damaged area right of 10th/18th before

Damaged area after

4th Bridge area before

4th Bridge after

Our plan is to do more on the 18^th around the pit but at the moment the area is to wet and we will need to revisit the drainage.  When this dries out enough we will start to fix this issue and then re-turf that area. The rest of that area to the right and hugging along the tree line has been seeded as this area is out of play and will recover quickly.

Area at the bottom by the pit on 18th holding water and requires drainage

We have also managed to spray greens with some iron and wetting agents to protect them from disease. We are still dewing greens daily to help reduce the moisture content on greens which in turn helps reduce disease attacks. We haven’t had to do any cutting so far this year due to the amount of frosts and little growth, we are trying to keep this to a minimum when wet to reduce damage with the bonus being over 1000m2 of turfing being done this week.

The frosty weather gave us an opportunity to run the top-soil finally into the18th fairway bunker. Small loads were run in with our Gators and then spread and firmed in ready for the heather to be turfed on it. This was a slow version but at least it will allow us to get this finished.    

 

Graham and Harry looking at Leather jackets. Note how damaged turf is compared to fairway

Leather Jacket eating root of grass plant on the 4th

Another thing we have been looking at is Leather Jacket damage and seeing what our populations are like. As I ve said before the chemistry we used to have to reduce this pest has now been revoked and the damage from crows digging for these Leather jackets (Cranefly) and the damage the grub actually does by eating 60% of all roots on a grass plant can be quite alarming. We are looking at different ways to reduce the impact from these through more cultural means but I will blog more about these soon once I have more information.  

That’s enough from me this week.

 

Stay safe everyone, we can’t wait to have you back.

 

Matt