23/8/10

Busy weekend at Piperdam we had captains day on sunday which was rearranged from earlier in the season when it was washed out. We had the course prepared to an extent on friday, so the weekend work comprised of cutting and rolling greens on sat morning, cutting some fairways and the approaches on sat afternoon. We then cut the greens with pedestrian mowers on sat night and changed holes, moved markers and put the new cups and flags out.

Sunday morning we pedestrian cut and double rolled greens and raked the bunkers.

We let the greens rest today, as they would start to stress out if we kept such a prolonged maintenance programme. So we dew brushed greens and then sprayed them with seaweed and primo maxx (growth regulator). We also cut fairways, tee's and approaches on the big course, cut rough and greens on the wee course and changed all holes. As well as that we started edging sprinklers and yardage markers for the open.

19/8/10

A touch of disease has popped up at Piperdam on the big greens over the last couple of day we have diagnosed it as type 2 fairy ring, its the less destructive type of fairyring.

This type of fairyring is superficial, generally there will be a dark green circle on the outside edge of it, other types of fairyring will either kill the outside ring or have fungi growing in the outside ring. We took no risks anyway and sarel rolled the greens and spot treated the greens affected with a systemic fungicide, we then sprayed the greens with wetting agent to keep the rings hydrated and liquid iron to try and mask the dark green circles.

Other jobs today included cutting greens, tees, approaches and fairways on the wee course. We also cut around tees on the big course and started cutting the rough.

17/8/10

It was a wet start to the day at Piperdam today, we started to cut and strim around the trees on the golf course. We also plugged the 2nd green where there was still a little scaring from the hydraulic oil leak earlier in the season. After the rain stopped we hand cut all greens and rolled the big greens. Later in the day we carried on tidying up the bunkers and picked the range. We finished cutting around the trees in the afternoon, there is still some strimming left to do tomorrow.

16/8/10

The golf course was quite busy over the weekend with outings and a medal. So we cut greens on both courses both days and rolled the big greens, we also raked bunkers and moved markers.

Today we cut fairways, tees and approaches. We cut the approaches the opposite way to get any grass that had been flattened down by continually cutting the grass in the same direction. We also hand cut the wee greens and triple cut the big greens. The lodges also needed cut so two guys went up and got the grass around them cut.

With 3 very busy weeks coming up we have started to get the bunkers tidied up that included flymoing, strimming weeding and stone picking, we have completed 7 holes.

11/8/10

Today at Piperdam we sarel rolled the big greens, cut behind with pedestrians and then fed the greens with a 7-0-14 fertiliser at 35 g/m2 . We sarel rolled the greens to open up the surface to allow air and fertiliser into the profile.

We also cut and rolled the wee greens to get the speed up on the wee course. We cut fairways on the big course, strimmed around trees, touched up bunkers and started cutting the rough.

10/8/10

Torrential rain showers at Piperdam today, so we held of on cutting fairways and rough until tomorrow. We had the Dundee police championships on the course today, so we dew brushed greens, cut with pedestrians behind and double rolled the greens.

We also cut approaches on the big course, changed holes, cut around trees and raked the bunkers.

9/8/10

It was a wet day at piperdam today, so we cut the greens with pedestrians, also we cut tee and approaches on both courses.

We also took the opportunity of having a quieter day to start to stone pick and weed the worst bunkers on the course. We also picked the range and zero turned around greens and bunkers on the big course.

It was also an ideal day to try and fix the pond on 16, the concrete damn had collpased so we emptied the pond and got the jcb to try and damn up the end, we packed it full of stones and then put clay soil over the top. If this does not work we will empty the pond again and put cement over the area.

5/8/10

With the weather being reasonably dry this week the greens are starting dry out a little to much, so we sprayed the greens with a wetting agent and irrigated behind so some moisture was taken up by the wetting agent. We tank mixed the wetting agent with seaweed and rocastem. The seaweed will help to thicken out the sward and make the grass more resistant to stress. Rocastem is part of out liquid aertion programme we put rocastem on monthly and t-thatch goes out 3 times during the season. Rocastem will help to clean up organic matter in the profile and hopefully increase water percolation, t-thatch will add microbes to the soil and they will help to break down the thatch level.

Other work today included hand cutting greens on both courses, cutting fairways, cutting rough and picking/cutting the driving range.

3/8/10

General work carried out on the course included cutting, rolling greens and cutting fairways.









The top dressing on the greens has fully gone into the profile now, so we stripped down our pedestrian mowers and put them on the grinders to sharpen the sole plate and cylinders. Thats the advantage of having our own grinders, we can sharpen machines in a fraction of the time as it would take to send them away.

Other jobs carried out today were cutting aroung lodges, picking the range and fixing paths on the golf course.