Wet wet wet

 Hi All,

I thought I’d do a little blog update to look at the effects of the recent weather has had on the course.

Since the 12th October we have experienced a rollercoaster of weather patterns, from heavy rainfall, weather warnings to some bursts of sunshine. We have registered over 130mm of rain and counting as I write this blog. All of this  following a wet summer with 252mm since July.

The amount of consistent rain has had a significant impact on the soils moisture levels and in turn the course. 

Bunkers needing time to drain down

The first week of this weather rollercoaster brought heavy rainfall to the South of England. This deluge resulted in saturated soils, making them destabilise the surfaces. To counter this we applied wetting agents to the surfaces to make the water penetrate further into the profile  and to help dry off the surfaces. 

You would have also noticed we then brought the winter traffic management out earlier than we ever have before by roping off all the aprons and wet areas around the course in an attempt to keep play going. 

 

Wet soils and high wind impacted the Oak on the 12th

 

The rain continued to fall at extremely high levels and consistently every day giving us no drying time, causing completely saturated soils and water logging with even the sand based courses in the area like Hayling and Corhampton flooding.

Now with the lower evaporation rates, high water table and less daylight hours. The daylight hours actually has a huge impact, more than people would realise by the end of November it be less the eight hours of daylight compared to the summers over 16 hours. The reduction of daylight has a big impact on evaporation and our ability to dry down quicker and became playable again. Even 24 hours without rain would make a huge difference but we are not even close to this or forecast it yet. 

The impact of this can make surfaces less safe and can cause significant damage at the start of winter. Damage that won’t recover and will only get worse if we don’t manage it. 

 

 

Trolley Ban

Bringing in a Trolley ban sometimes is our only way to reduce the impact and long term damage while trying to keep the course Open. We also have to look at the safety of you our members. 

I have received a lot of emails from members asking us to bring one in. Simply because our “Please make every effort to carry your bag” is just being ignored by those that don’t believe they need to help protect their course. 

When we say this, it’s our last attempt to let the players make that decision. For them to honestly look in the mirror and think… “do I really need a trolley, could I not use a pencil bag with half a set of clubs in it?” 

Doing this would dramatically reduce the damage on the course, it would be open more and those that really, really need a trolley due to ill health could still use it. 

Unfortunately this was not being applied and left us with the only option being to bring in a trolley ban as a last resort. 

I can promise you that as soon as the weather improves and the course starts to dry out this will be reversed. We do not want to impact people’s enjoyment, we just need to get through these waves of bad weather during the winter months to enable us to keep the course playable and safe. 

Course closures 

It’s inevitable with this much rainfall, high water table, lower evaporation and lack drying time that the course will become flooded, unstable and unplayable. We will have to make decisions to close the course on safety and damage grounds. This is always the last option but we have a long winter ahead and we need to keep the course in a good enough condition to withstand the rest of the winter. The cost of repairing the damage and lack of growth to aid this must also be taken into account. Again I can promise you this is something we really don’t want to do. We do have the option of the range now, where you can meet friends and play courses from all over the world including Stoneham on Trackman if you want to meet up, hit balls and play a game and have a drink on these really wet winter days. Speak to the Proshop and they help set this up. 

New seedlings coming up on Aprons

The Silver Lining - Growth Benefits:

It's not all bad news, though. The rain has also provided some benefits for the turf.

The moisture has stimulated some grass growth, resulting in some recovery in areas and aiding the new seedlings on the aprons. 

However, this growth can lead to the need for more mowing and maintenance which cannot be achieved during this amount of rainfall. Sometimes it’s better to leave it and turn our attentions other areas rather than causing damage as we go through this wet period. So apologies if some areas are a little longer than normal. Even getting machines out to maintain the course is very difficult in prolonged wet periods like this. 

Conclusion:

Our weather in the past two weeks has certainly had its ups and downs. While the heavy rain caused soil saturation and challenges for us and other sports including football, rugby, horse racing and golf.. 

The impacts of such weather remind us of the importance of good soil management and the resilience required to maintain turf.  

It has highlighted areas we need to improve drainage on. You may have noticed repairs on-going around the course on the likes of 18th and the 3rd, these drains had been hit during the irrigation installation as we thought along with more areas we are still looking at. The team have been using cameras to follow drains and find the points of impact from the mole ploughs. We have fixed or left areas open for us to monitor during this wet period. More on this in the next blog). 

 

Irrigation through the drainage on the 3rd (the trouble with no as laid plans of drainage)

 

As the weather continues to be unpredictable on this island of ours, golfers and greenkeepers we have to adapt and ensure the safety and best possible playing conditions for all.

Remember it’s not just us that are being impacted it’s a lot of sports. It’s simply just turf and too much water! 

See you soon and let’s hope for some dry days.

Matt 

No Pain, No Gain

 

Hi All,

 

Looking Back

Just writing to update you all on what’s been happening on the course and to look at some of the challenges we are tackling at the moment.

As the season comes to an end, we can look back with pride on how our members represented the club at all levels and in our own competitions.

This has been ‘another’ tough year from the course side of things but I think the team have done a fantastic job of dealing with everything that’s been thrown at us.

The season started off tremendously wet then it promised to be a good spring but that quickly transitioned into a hot May and June and a real worry about water and how much we would need kicked in. It still amazes me how quickly things can change.

In just a couple of weeks the evaporation increases dramatically as temperatures rise and day light hours increase.

Now as we head into Autumn these rolls reverse as the day light hours draw in, the temperatures drop, meaning moisture levels increase and the risk of turf diseases (and our own flus and colds) increase. This when the water tables start to rise. Some areas in Scotland have unbelievable amounts of rain since the 12^th September with this weekend hitting a new level of rainfall with Loch Lomond recording 100mm of rain in one day. That’s over a month’s worth of rain.

Washout after 35mm of rain 

Thankfully we haven’t had that and our wet summer from July seems good in comparison. We experienced 35mm in one night and due to this being in the summer and all of the above aiding our investments in the bunker drainage, the tarmacked pathways and the greens drainage we managed to get the course open and set up for a 9.30 shotgun, including cutting and rolling greens. A remarkable achievement on clay soils.

A team effort to restore the bunkers

Maintenance Works

In the last two days we have been hit with some very heavy rain. This has meant a change of plan for the planned hollow coring works. Every time we aerate we have to consider many factors, with rain being the main one in autumn, it’s welcomed in the summer following the works but not during the process as we had this week. We had planned to hollow core as I mentioned in our ‘Maintenance Plans’ that came out back in August. The plan was to hollow core tine on the 12^th and 13^th of October but following forecast and to try and reduce the amount of water getting into the profile we switched this process to a scarification. In a hope that we could still hit some of the targeted thatch without too much water penetrating the soils. We have carried out aeration works on these back in August so they have had some de-compaction and air but sometime we just have to make a change in the plan due to weather.  

Scarifying Aprons

It’s worth remembering we use contractors to help us with process at this time of year in attempt to be done quicker and with the correct machinery that we don’t own or currently have space to house. Originally we were due to hollow core Aprons, surround, tees and Fairways. A huge undertaking but due recent budget cuts we had to negotiate with the contractor to reduce the work down to just tees, aprons and surrounds.

Then with a week to go 25mm of rain appeared on the forecast. Hence why we made the change. Unfortunately this hit us during the night between the works and has left some of the aprons and tees wetter than we want as the water has penetrated the thatch layer but it is still better than it would have been with a hollow cored and will hopefully dry out with the wind and a couple of days without the rain.

Damage

The amount of thatch removed during the scarifying works was quite remarkable and great for our long term goal of firming up our main playing surfaces and I believe this is something that we have to do more of. There has been some areas of damage. Weak areas have ripped up and are being divoted to aid recovery. Please be patient with this. It’s a bit of no pain, no gain. These are the same areas that are keeping the aprons soft or not allowing us to tighten the cut to make them even better.   

The Pain :-(

The weak areas could be being caused by Chafer grub or Leather jacket damage or lack of root development due to Fairy ring and drought stress.  

Tournaments

The Tournaments have come and gone including Club Championships, England Golf, Pro Am, The Club Champs, The R&A Coronation Cup, Stoneham Trophy and Masters, Clutch Tour and many, many more. A special thanks to North Hants and Ogbourne downs golf clubs who sent greenkeeping volunteers in to help with the Clutch Tour.

Divot repair following Tournaments

Challenges

1.      Silver Moss- One of our challenges in the last few months has been Silver Moss. We have discussed this issue on the blog before. The Silver moss has encroached on to the drain lines, especially the 2^nd, 5th, 12^th, 17th, short game area. The Silver moss takes over on a thinning swards like our drain lines in the heat of summer or on pitch marks.

Silver Moss can be seen at the surface of the cores

This has been an issue we have been battling with for a couple of years on and off and have been talking this through with our Agronomist but we have carried out some trial work this year which we have had good results with and we have planned this into next summer’s strategy.

2.      Machinery- In 2016 we invested heavily into our machinery fleet as the equipment at the time was old and unsafe. The club have been investing into the machinery fleet ever since but as some of our core older machines are coming to the end of their life we are experiencing more and more break downs and machines not available to use. Some of these repairs are now taking months to repair due to part shortages with the knock on effect from Covid and Brexit.

The impact of machinery not working, breaking down or not working properly does impact the course we are capable of delivering. Even with a magic wand replacements are now taking between 12-18 months for delivery. The cost of borrowing money at the moment is also high with the market when looking at bigger deals. The price of the parts has doubled and buying second hand would only mean replacing them with machines in a similar situation to ours. The club are still investing in new and hire machinery to help but with purchases also increasing nearly 200% our speed of replacement has reduced because of costs.

Please be patient if you catch a member of staff or see a machine broken down on the course. There are reasons why things maybe taking a bit longer than normal.

 Conclusion

Looking back over the season I feel proud with how each and every one of the team have performed. We have welcomed two new faces with Matthew Strutt Donnelly and Freddy Banks fitting in perfectly.

Both Mark Blake and James Ferris have completed their Diploma in Sports Turf Management Level 3 and Harry Horn getting Distinction for both his written and practical exams for his Diploma in Sports Turf Level 2. Levi Pethick was awarded a place on FTMI (Future Turf Manager Initiative) from BIGGA. Open support, Tournament supporting, Course walks, Seminars, Webinars and lots of training within the team.

The clubhouse team with Shah at the helm and Ian in the Pro shop have all been fantastic to work with. The MC and Captains committee have been very busy looking at how to improve the business and the golf side with a focus on sustainability are something to be proud of.

Coming up drainage works and repairing damaged drain on the 3^rd and 18^th along with other areas will be on our agenda, the yearly battle with leaves will start and aiding recovery from the works talked about in the blog plus some renovations of bunkers and turfing weak areas are all on the horizon.

I do hope you found this blog interesting and you can see lots of work is being done.

Thank you for your patience with the latest scarifying works. Sometimes we have to break and egg to make an omelette! 

See you soon 

Matt  

 

 

The Open - Working a major

 Hi All,

 

Finally I’ve had time to sit back and reflect following a busy period on the course with the Stoneham Trophy, Maintenance Week, Reservoir Project and so much more since my time at the Open. I’ve had a lot of people asking about the Open and I thank you for the comments. So I thought before I carry on blogging about the course and what we’ve been up too and the challenges we face, I thought I’d put it into a blog.   

The 151^st Open Championship was my first Open, I hadn’t even managed to get to one as a spectator before. I’ve been to Ryder Cups, European Tour events,  I’ve visited some of the biggest and best courses in the world and have worked at 14 x Vovlo/BMW Tournaments at Wentworth, The Dunhill Cup at Kingsbarns,  8 x USGA Final Open Qualifying events, Final Open Qualifying events and hosted Regional Open Qualifying events but I’d never been to the Open. The oldest major and the one that I remember most growing up watching Faldo and Seve playing in.

This year Stoneham had three staff members at North Hants to help with Regional Open Qualifying. Levi Pethick, Mark Blake and James Ferris all enjoyed their time at the start of this year’s Open Championship.     

 The Story

Back in 2013 I was asked to be part of this new training initiative by BIGGA (the greenkeeper association) called the FTMI (Future Turf Manager Initiative). This is a training course for the management of golf clubs from the management side including budgeting, team building, health and safety, policies and staff training etc. It was felt that most of the training in the past had been based on agronomy rather than the management and this was going to be a chance for the top 20 up and coming people from within the industry to be part of every year, free of charge. Applicants would win a place on this initiative. Luckily enough our very own Levi Pethick has won a place on the year’s Class of 2023. Graham Hastie also won a place on this back in 2018.

In 2013 I was asked to go along one of the original Mentors. The mentors would work with the training providers, guest speakers and then would work with small groups within the class and make it industry relevant, share experiences and methods to help the students. I was luckily enough to be involved for five years and I learnt loads from the experience and from those other mentors and Students. The original Class was excellent with most of them now all in Course Managers/ management roles across the UK.

One of the 2013 class was James Bledge who at the time was the Deputy Course Manager at Royal Cinque Ports in Kent. We became good friends following this and shortly after FTMI James was promoted to Course Manager at RCP and stayed there for 9 years, during this time I went down and helped “Bledge’ as he’s known within the industry at final Open qualifying events before he moved on to Royal Liverpool just two years before the Open in the same role. After he was appointed Bledge started putting a team together for the Open and invited me to be part of it. Something I will always be grateful for. I thought I had missed my chance to work at “major’ but in life you just never know what opportunities are coming.

 Once I had discussed this with my family, I spoke to the MC about the offer from Royal Liverpool and they gave me there full blessing to go and be part of something amazing and to learn new things that I could bring back to Stoneham. Lastly I needed the greenstaff to be on board and they were and I must say they done a fantastic job while I was away. The course was great and as normal a real team effort.

Royal Liverpool required us to be on site for ten days and following some training and an exam via the R&A before we could even set foot on site, passes and badges were done and we travelled up on the 15^th July. I travelled with Graeme Roberts (Course Manager at Hayling) and Tom Brearley (Deputy CM at Parkstone). Both FTMI class of 2013. Graeme would be my roommate for the ten days, someone I’ve known for many years as his father was Course Manager at Hankley Common and is a good friend of mine.

 

Day 1

On arrival on day 1 we got all of belongings unpacked in our Bunkerbins, You may remember we had a couple of these in our over low car park for a couple of years during the Academy construction. These are very basic beds, some storage and a shower room. Like a container but they worked great. Royal Liverpool had about 26 of them put into the greenkeepers yard for bedrooms for the staff. This meant we were always on site and even when everyone had gone home we had Hoylake to ourselves, the empty grandstands and the empty course. That in itself was an amazing experience.

Health and Safety 

After unpacking we had a team briefing from James Bledge and the R&A and a welcome from the Captain of Royal Liverpool. After this we had a Health and safety training session and then this was followed by a course walk. We walked every hole looking at areas, discussing details, getting a feel for the course. This was my first visit to Hoylake and although it plays differently to the member course it flowed fantastically and I could understand the history of the club and how important it’s been for golf and the Open Championship.  It’s very much like the old course in places, fairly flat with subtle undulations and then areas around the back 9 have huge movement. The course conditioning was fantastic.

The surfaces were some of the best I’ve ever seen! The members at Royal Liverpool and any guests had been playing off mats for the entire winter and all season in the run up to the Open and the Course was closed for two weeks prior to the Open and a two days after the Open Championship. Areas around the greens where the balls would gather had been roped off for no play, the roughs had been roped off all winter so no one could take a trolley into them. The range had been closed for months leading up it as this was the main tented village area and around the course the building of infrastructure had started in the March daily right up until the week before. The size of the ‘contractors compound’ who were building the infrastructure, running the hospitality, running the media centre, hard wiring in the internet and TV coverage across the course was huge. It was like its own village on the outskirts of the course.

 

Everyone was given areas of the golf course for work. There was a greens team (eight), hole changing duo, a tees team (three), surrounds team (three) a fairway team (eight), which separated into a pathway team and fairways team due to the grass pathways being so big around the course, almost as big as the fairways and the bunker team (six). The rough only got once during the entire 10 days and this was only one band around the edge of the fairways and then the thick stuff. Along with the course teams you had the Mechanic team (five), Irrigation team (three), Range team (two) and then the R&A and ‘sweep team’. This was James Bledge his Deputy Paul and First Assistant Chris. 

Then would walk each hole checking with the R&A Agronomist who also had a team of R&A staff of five or six who were stimping greens, clegging greens, moisture probing greens to give live data and all the cutting of the greens was based on the readings. Their aim was to get all greens on the course putting as close to the same speed to each other as possible and I think they got it to within 4 inches which is remarkable. This meant some greens were being triple cut and others having their height of cut raised to and mown at a different height in the chase for perfection.

Stimping greens in the links wind was a team effort 

I was part of the fairway team and would cut fairways every morning ahead of play. Our team briefing would start at 3.45am, then straight out cutting at 4am. We would normally finish around 6.30am on fairways and would start on the 18^th and then go in hole order. The reason is similar to us cutting the 18^th green first due to the proximity of the 18^th and 1^st tees. After this we would go back out on the course and flat rake all the sand scrapes and anything else that was being brought up during the course inspection ahead of play. 

Fairway cutting 

Cutting coarse grasses off greens in the evening shift

This involved cutting Marram grasses off the pathways and tees as this looked unsightly plus many other things. The entire team would be back at the yard around 9am and would go for breakfast. Then we could watch golf or being doing other smaller jobs around the greenkeeping yard, grab some lunch. After this is was either ‘Stop Oil’ duty to watch out and respond to the Stop Oil protesters or getting things prepped for the afternoon jobs. If we were lucky a quick siesta following the 3am alarm clock before meeting at 3pm again for briefing and the start of the afternoon shift which would finish between 9.30- 10pm. If it was raining we were needed to be ready to go back out with squeegees.

 

Wallasey 

On two of the practice days we got to go off site briefly for a course walk, presentation and breakfast at nearby Wallasey Golf Club. Wallasey is a stunning links course that overlooks Liverpool which is going through some seriously major changes. The condition of the course was simply inspiring.

Wallasey 

The second visit was to a ‘Clubhouse’ or home to Clayton, Devries & Pont golf course architects. It was a great two hours with some of the world’s leading golf course architects and leading historians before heading back to Hoylake just two roads away.  

Our evening shifts mainly consisted of divotting fairways, picking up divots, trimming pop ups, brushing off revet faces, bunker maintenance, cutting coarse grasses with scissors from the greens. All greens were stimped and data taken in the evenings which would result in some being cut again to keep the speed up. The tees were only divoted twice in the ten days as they didn’t want them to smear for TV when cutting the next morning.  

 

On the Wednesday afternoon briefing we were spoken to by Alastair Beggs, Head of agronomy at The R&A, Grant Moir, Director of the R&A, James Bledge (with his Parents, Wife, Children and dogs all attended the briefing) along with the Chairman of Greens at Royal Liverpool who reminded us how important how big the event was and how steeped in history it was and how we were all about to play our part in this great championship. They also reminded us about the 600 million viewers and 262,000 specators visiting that week. Nothing makes the focus kick in more than the world’s best players, the media and 600 million viewers!

 

As the tournament started the data readings were fantastic, we even managed a couple of days of sunshine to show the course off. Green speeds were between 10.4-10.9 all week with low winds meaning the speed could be increased from the normal 9.5-10 for links golf. The greens were so firm and clegged over 120gm which is high as we aim ours at a maximum of 110gm and only during the summer dry spells can we hit it. These were 120gms in the wet.

The bunkers were a big talking point but I didn’t think they were overly penal. We are talking about the best players in the world who hit the ball unlike any other. The ball speed and carry is off the charts, so missing a fairway or green should be punished for the best players in the world.

The big discussion was the fact the bunkers were level, no incline leaving a 90 degree angle with the revet face. Ours at Stoneham are between 25-35 degrees, we know this as each one was tested during the building of them.

After day one the R&A made the decision to change the raking style slightly and to move the sand on the faces up one revet turf so less than three inches but it meant the ball released from the face slightly. After this the bunkers weren’t the discussion point again and they worked better for all involved.

After the Sunday set up we were asked to be ready on each green with a squeegee due to the high levels of rain coming in. Luckily I was given the 17^thhole so I managed to stand inside the ropes with the TV crews and watch as each group would come through with no chance of rain forming on the “Little Eye” as its named 17^th (15^th for members).

I loved this hole, with the stands all around the tee, the big stand next to the green and the spectators on the dune left of the green, amazing bunkers and runs offs all around and a sand scrape and the beach behind the infinity green. I got to watch the players play the entire hole from tee and putting out.

The view of the winning putt 

We had 36mm of rain on that last day and I can tell you we were absolutely soaked but the course didn’t have a puddle on it. I then got to walk up the fairway with Brian Harman as he played into the 18^th and hear the crowds. We were told to stand just off the apron where the fairway would end near the green. In front of us we watched the winning putt of the 151^st Open. The presentation of the most recognised trophy in golf all from the staff members view. Behind us armed police, then the Marshalls and then the crowds. Once the last Putt went in and the crowds cheered, there was a feeling of relief and pride amongst the team. This truly was a once in a lifetime opportunity and I am thankful for all of those that made it possible for me to play a small part of golfing history.

The Open Champion Brian Harman and James Bledge Links Manager Royal Liverpool GC

For those interested, Cookie Jar golf filmed a mini documentary about the Open and the greenkeepers:-https://youtu.be/IfrfULA6XEw?si=wAZq1LN__TUY_nJL

I was lucky enough to be given a flag from the course of my favorite hole 

I have so many stories from the Open I could have gone on forever but I hope this gives you an insight to some of the Open. I learnt a lot from this experience and got to spend time with some of the best greenkeepers in UK from Royal Dornoch, St Andrews, Southerness, Carnoustie, Muirfield, Lady Bank in the North to Royal Cinque Ports, Royal St Georges in the East, Wallasey, Royal Birkdale on the West, to Sunningdale, Parkstone, Hayling and most of all representing Stoneham in the south.  

 

See you soon

 

Matt

Talking about the rough and the smooth May 2023

Hi All, 

 

Well, that’s another month passed and it’s great to finally see the sunshine and temperatures from mid- May, hopefully the recent weather is giving us a glimpse of the rest of the summer.

Looking back- April came with actual “April showers” in the form of heavy downpours following a wet March which made the winter feel a particularly long one. In fact one of the longest winters I can remember!

 

Lets have a quick look at how this is impacting us now…

 March ended with 129mm of rain with 22 days of rain in a row and April bringing another 90mm of rain in total.  I looked up the data for the winter months (October to April) in 2022-2023 and we recorded 764mm in comparison last winter (21-22) we had 392mm with our average being 573mm over the last ten years. Hence why it felt like a long one. It’s been a wet winter for sure and we experienced a lot more issues with ice and frosts. Those frozen greens and balls bouncing high in the air when hitting into them or the sheet ice on pathways seem a long time ago in this current weather.

Growth wise we were running 10 days behind last year looking at the GDD modelling, only to have this rocket in the last two weeks in May.

For years the cold springs have been a real issue for recovery from the winter play and this year all our modelling showed it looked the same. We took the opportunity to apply fertilisers to the weak areas of the course, areas of rough or walkways that we wouldn’t normally feed but we needed these areas to heal.

Then, the warmth hit at the same time as the moisture was still in the soil profile and the growth rates really kicked off. FINALLY A PROPER SPRING! 

 

So what has this meant for us and this spring?

 

Following the wet winter and then sudden rise in soil temperatures this meant we experienced a flush of growth in all areas.

 

Greens

I’ve spoken a lot about the different grass species we have on the greens. We are a Poa and Bent mix. Here is a blog just on this from May 2016 which I wrote about greens:-

Grass species on greens

 

 

Over the last few year’s we have really upped our over seeding of Bent grass species into the greens, this is dovetailing to all the drainage works carried out the greens. This is now speeding up the recovery time following heavy rainfall on greens and lowering the moisture levels faster. This in turn means the Bent grass species has more of a chance of surviving and the soil life improves, again aiding resistance to diseases and lending itself to the Bent species. 

 

Why is this important? With the reduction of chemicals (we have now lost another Fungicide in the last month, this means from 30+ ten years ago we now have 3) we need to look at species that require less water, less fertiliser, less disease outbreaks. For the golfer, Bent surfaces can be considered the best and in the UK when we talk about Queenwood, Wentworth or The Grove, they are pure Creeping Bent greens.

Due to our soil profile being clay, we will never be Poa free or should want to be, but we will go through a tough period each year between April and May when at first the Bent starts to grow as this grows at a lower soil temperature than Poa so we get a bobbly effect on the surface and then we get our annual seedhead flush on the Poa grass species. This naturally slows the ball down and green speeds decline until we can do a few things to help this as we have done in the last six weeks.

•     Lower the heights of cut once the greens are firm enough to reduce the bobble
•      Increase in cutting. This is the period we move into daily cutting of the greens, sometimes twice a day
•      Groomer/brush the greens to get an even cut of the grass species, almost how a hair dresser brings the hair through the comb and cuts it even (well that’s what they did when I had hair…)
•      Topdress (I know this is controversial) but topdressing actually smooth’s the surfaces and aids drainage and OM control. We need to apply 150 tonnes per year to maintain the greens where they are, performance wise.
•       Over seed with Bent grass species, the more we add the more blends the surfaces and a truer, consistent ball roll comes from this. 
•           PGR – Plant growth regulators applied throughout this period to aid seed head suppression and keep the two different grasses at similar heights after we have cut them
  

The greens have improved a lot over the last month and moisture levels have declined, in turn firming up the greens. 

The Moisture levels are now being maintained due to the warm temps in a safe zone. We cannot risk going to dry at this point as daily ET is around 4mm per day. We need enough moisture in the soil that by the end of the day its hitting the target numbers to survive. Surfactant wetting agents to hold the moisture evenly in the soils are being applied to not just the greens but all playing surfaces, helping us reduce the amount water required through irrigation.     

The grooming, rolling and mowing have increased plus the use of regulators have meant we are now getting the data we would expect from summer greens and once the seedhead flush subsides as we go into June the pace of the greens will increase naturally. We don’t want to be forcing this as it can have a knock on effect later in the year disease wise. I am currently happy with where the greens are going into the summer now.  

 

 Tees

The fertiliser program and daily divotting from the team plus the important use of winter mats during the ‘no growth’ months has meant the tees, even though by modern course standards are too small to cope with the amount of play we receive are recovering well. Even the likes of the 4^th  and 5^th,  9^th tees have recovered better than we first thought.

Aprons, run offs, fairways and surrounds-

 

These have all improved with the weather and the work the team have put into them. The amount of divots that have recovered and are now growing following the divot trophy is quite remarkable. Lots of work has gone into these areas as we try to keep improving them including scarifying, fertilising and aeration works plus additional divotting or soil repairs to bare areas from the team. We are not perfect yet but it is something we can keep working on and will continue with.

 

Drainage issues-

You will have noticed some really wet areas around the course. Areas like the bottom of the 3^rd, the bottom of the 4^th, by the bell on the 4^th, the 6^th and 12^th in the valley in front of both greens, the 15^th in the low are by the 16^th tee, the 18^th in front of the ladies and off the range.

These areas being so wet are a mixture of issues, some of it will be water moving due to the irrigation system being moled in and hitting old drains that we never knew existed (there are no maps or survey maps of all the old drainage on the course).

Some will be drains that have failed as they only have a limited life before tree roots or silts block them or simply need work to fix. The club have purchased a trencher

for us to be able to start draining these areas and this is something we have ear marked for the summer. You know what they say “ Do your irrigation works in winter and drainage works in summer” and this is the plan for us. These wet areas provide us with the opportunity to fix them and for another challenge for us as we look to keep improving the course.

 

6^th and 12^th

When I first started at Stoneham I was told we had a full drainage system with culverts running from the new (2015) ditch on the 17^th all across the 15^th- the 14^th- the 12^th – the 6^th to the ditch on the right of the 6^th in the valley. We certainly have inspection pits in areas but on a closer look we have realised the culvert doesn’t actually make it passed the 14^th. The pipe work between the 6^th and 12^th is a mix of old clay pipes and old white perforated plastic 60mm pipe. This is not good enough and is something we need to look at to improve this area. We need these areas acting as main drainage for us to take secondary drainage from. The plan is to address this later this summer when a break in the golfing calendar will give us the time to do this quite a big piece of work.

The cause off all the problems 6th

 

What’s been done so far…

We have already repaired a break on the pipe on the right of the 12^th fairway in April. With the use of cameras up the drainage pipe we found the area to the right of the 12th and backing up into the 6^th fairway. A broken small land pipe was repaired and the area rodded to increase flow. Then the left handside of the 12^th and 6^th became even wetter. Puzzling us all. During the England Golf week as the course dried out we noticed this wasn’t improving even though the rainfall had reduced.

Last week Jack and Levi started looking for the issue now dry enough to trace the issue back and after a day’s digging a small leak on the irrigation system on a faulty joint was found on the left of the 6^thfairway, enough to fill a bath fairly quickly and over time to saturate an area. This has now been repaired and we should see an improvement to those holes.

Roughs

We know the roughs have gone mad and the growth in these areas are making it challenging to find balls and has impacted on the speed of play. In 2016 we went through the same period but now we have done a lot of work over the years thinning these roughs out and increasing our heathland areas.  

I can only apologise for this. We have over the years purchased two different types of rough mower. One standard rotary batwing mower and one cutting and collecting for the eco roughs around the course.

Both mowers have had wheel issue this last two weeks. The Toro was broken down on the back of the 1st green due to a hub issue and the Grillo which cuts and collects our eco roughs needed a new tyre and bearings the higher height of cut kit. Sounds like simple fixes, which they are but waiting for parts from the states and Italy respectfully has its issues and our lack of storage space means holding loads of spares for all the mowers we have is not possible yet. We carry the basics but sometimes you just cant beat these things. Both mowers are now back fully functioning (the Grillo last Friday evening) and will be out to take the heat out of the roughs but Mother Nature will also do her thing in the coming days as they dry out and we will be left with these golden long roughs and purple heather soon.      

Regarding our normal roughs, this year we have reduced the height from 89mm to 75mm in an attempt to make the roughs more uniform, what we hadn’t bargained for was the growth we got and them to thicken up the way they have following the rain and feeds. This isn’t quite US open style but not far off. Over the coming weeks these will burn off like every year and the fertiliser will reduce and we will be left with a fairer hazard (remember that’s what it is). Our aim was always to get grass coverage and a more uniform rough, nothing else. I know I am not talking to many of you as some never miss the fairway but for those of you like me, I promise these areas will improve in the coming days/ weeks.

 

England Golf week

 

I would like to finish off by saying a huge well done to all those involved in the England Golf week. The course really came to life that week and the team worked tirelessly going into and during the event.

To all the clubhouse team and office team who managed the day to day stuff brilliantly and to all those that Volunteered, thank you. 

During our appraisal process this year, all the team were asked about, what inspired them to be part of the greenkeeping team at Stoneham? Many clubs are really struggling and there is an industry issue with the lack of greenkeepers coming into the business. Finding good quality staff is almost impossible but we have a fantastic qualified team. All of them said along with other things but all of them said “being part of a team that holds Championship tournaments”.

These England golf events mean we maintain a championship title, and we host Championship tournaments and we are Championship club.

The benefits to the membership are more than this, we attract good greenkeepers who want to be part of it and want to improve your club and to produce a club you are proud of. Next years event is one of the biggest competitions in Europe and will bring some of the best players we are likely to see at Stoneham. I for one cannot wait to host them because this is a club we should all be proud to be part of!

 

Enjoy the sunshine.

 

See you soon

 

Matt