Moles

Quite a few moles active around the golf course in the past month or so, we lift the mole hills and have been trapping and gassing them as we go.

Staff changes

We have seen a couple of changes in the staffing levels/positions in the last month or so.  Gary has moved onto the position of Head Greenkeeper at Cupar golf club, we wish Gary all the best and thank him for all his hard work in the last 4 years.   Steve is taking a step up and becoming deputy.   Steve has been with us for 5 years and it's a great opportunity for him.  John who has been our seasonal for the past 4 seasons has been made full time, it's great to have him on board all year round.   Also due to the increased amount of chainsaw work we have kept our other seasonal Sean on to take care of that.

Road resurfacing

During the past few seasons some of the roads/car park around the clubhouse and 1st tee have become a bit unsightly due to potholes forming.   We have identified these areas and have had them resurfaced, this will improve the look around these areas and make them safer for vehicles and pedestrians.

Shade

There has always been an issue with shade on the 4th green, with the left/back not seeing much light during the winter months.  This is because of the large deciduous trees at the back of the green.  We have thinned these out to allow light and air movement.   I used or new log grab/trailer,  great piece of kit!!

Friday set up

As part of course set up on friday the greens were pedestrian cut, holes changed and general course maintenance.

Coring

We are carrying  on with coring tees, we have also started to core over the drains on the 14th fairway to help this dry up faster.

Collars & tees

We've finished coring collars, now we are concentrating on the Tees.  We hope to core all tees but this is weather dependant so we are doing the ones that require most attention first.

Autumn renovations

We cored the big course greens with a 3/8" tine and top dressed behind.  The wee greens were needing a but more attention as they hadn't been opened up this year so we used a 1/2" tine.  This was completed in mid October the greens have now fully recovered.  We have also graded half of the green on 1,2,3,4,6 & 9.  We had planned do more but the weather has been against us being very wet. 

Course maintenance has been restricted as the course has been getting saturated with all the rainfall.  We haven't cut much as the growth has slowed down but we have still been pedestrian cutting greens.

Today was the first day in 4 weeks we have had no rain.  Generally the greens have held up well with. Just a few collars staying a tad soggy.  

We have been carrying out tree pruning and taking out any dead trees.  We have also started to core the collars on the greens with 3/4" tines.  We hope to complete these this week.

General course work

We've been very busy working away maintaining all surfaces on the golf course, all surfaces are bring regularly mown and are looking very well.   The feedback we've had this season has been very positive with visitors and members alike they all seem to be happy with course presentation and the changes we under took.  We are still working away on the bunkers trying to keep them as stone and weed free as possible. 

The areas of new construction that were seeded are really starting to thicken up.  We have already rolled them and we will look to start cutting them.  A few of new tee banks have really jumped and have a few weeds poking through so we will get these strimmed down.  Please still treat these areas as GUR.

Our greens roller is currently waiting on parts coming this has been down since Wednesday but we hope to have this back up and running at the start of the week.  In mean time we have been double cutting the greens to maintain green speed. 

We plan to give the greens a verticut this week to remove some organic matter and will look to topdress again in the next few weeks.

Course work

We gave all the greens (except 14) a top dress last week, we went on fairly light so this brushed in pretty much straight away.  We never dressed 14 as the green was drying out and the sand would have stressed it out.  My irrigation system was down and we wouldn't have been able to keep it moist.  We got it the irrigation sorted on Thursday but that was too close to weekend to dress.  We got the 14th dressed to day.  As well as top dressing we also spiked, over seeded and put out a soil improver.  This had the extra work as the greens turf is new and has not got the moisture or nutrient holding capacity it of the other greens.

We have also liquid fed the greens and added in a growth regulator, iron and wetting agent.  The new 14th green got a granular as this will not so readily wash through with rain.

Stone picking

We have had team Niblick in for a few days this week to give us a hand stone picking/raking the 6th fairway.  It's quite a mind numbing job but the guys have done really well and it's a lot cleaner of stones than before.  We still have a a few piles to pick up and we will give it an another over seed to start thickening up some of the thinner areas.

Top dress

The big greens have been top dressed today.  The sand has brushed in nicely.

Seniors open

6th fairway and seed

We've started to gradually bring down the height off the turf on the new 6th fairway,  this will take a few weeks as we don't want it to thin out too much.   We cut it at 22 mm today and it took that cut no problem.  The areas that where newly seeded 2 weeks ago have seen some growth in the last week and are now starting to get a green haze.  The areas that were seeded slightly earlier (e.g. back off the 17th green) are really starting to fill out now and give grass coverage.

Greens

The big course greens have been top dressed (10 ton of medium course sand) and had a liquid feed applied.   We sarel rolled the greens in 2 directions dressed on top and then went over with the sarel rollers again with the drag mat behind.   We then worked the sand in with vibrating brushes and the tru turf roller.

They had 30 litres of 25-0-0 which works out about 9.7 kg-n/h, this was tank mixed with 20 litres iron (strength and colour), 0.4 litres of primo max (growth regulator) and salute (stands the plant up).

The wee greens have also been top dressed (5 ton of medium course sand) they then had a 4-0-8 fertiliser applied.

6th fairway open for play

The landing area on the 6th fairway is now open for play, the turf still needs a little time to knit together so we will be keeping the height up for the next few weeks.  Please treat the fairway as preferred lies.  If your ball ends up on the surrounding seeded areas please take a free drop to your nearest point off relief.   Under no circumstances take any golf trolleys or buggies over the seeded area, please choose the shortest walk on and off these areas, many thanks. 

We have carried on with our regular course maintenance and we have also sarel rolled the greens this will introduce some air into the surface.

Course presentation

The course is coming up nicely with the cutting that is going on just now.  We're managing to pretty much get most areas cut by ride on mower except the 2 new greens and approaches these are still being hand cut.  Can I remind all golfers not to be silly and stay out of all seeded areas as it's very unhelpful and lazy on the golfers behalf.  Please only step into areas areas of GUR to retrieve balls don't take your trolley through.

14th green

The 14th green has also opened this week this was in play for the mid week medal below is a photo of the pin on the green but we still had to cut and roll.

Seeded areas

The soil conditions finally got to a workable dryness at the tail end of the week.  This allow us to get out and get the  areas at the 6th fairway surround and 16th tee carry stone buried and levelled off and over seeded.  This will now tick away and we should see some greening up over the next few weeks.  The areas we seeded out a few weeks ago e.g. 17th green surround have started to turn green with the seed bursting out and starting to grow.  The turf on the 6th fairway has also been getting flymod this week and is starting to firm up nicely.

14th green

With the 17th green now open we've turned our attention towards the 14th to get that ready in preparation for opening.  This turf was imported unlike the 17th which we used the old 5th & 6th greens.  This means we have to be a little more patient with it as it's younger turf and hasn't been treated like a normal greens surface.  We have just about got the height to where we want it to be.  We have given it a few more top dresses to smooth the surface and we have also over seeded it.  We needed to get the rest of the green  site sorted, we have edged and filled the bunkers and have started to get the approach down to the required height.  This green is just about ready, we are still be on time for opening, we may even get it on early as well.

17th green

Big push on the 17th green and we've got it in play!  Bunkers have been edged and filled with sand.  Please treat all seeded areas at the back and right hand edge very carefully as they are still needing to establish.

6th fairway

After a wet and long shift today that's the 2nd load of turf onto the 6th fairway.   This will give a good size landing area and once it knits and roots we will be able to utilise the main tees rather than playing a reduced hole.  When in play the area around the turfed area will be lift and drop as the fairway surrounds will be seeded out and will need longer to establish.

6th fairway

The first load of turf has been laid on the 6th fairway.

Prep for turf & seed

We've prepared the area on the 6th fairway that will be getting turfed this week.  We are getting two lorry loads of turf in on wed & fri.  After the stone bear had finished we went over the area and picked up any bigger stone that were left.   Then the john deere bunker rake ran over it with the seeder this helps to take out any ruts left by the stone bear. 

We have also stone buried and seeded out the external areas at the 17th greensite.

The stonebear

The stone bear has been working on the fairway at the 6th, this removing most of the stone.   We then need to give It a final preparation before turfing.  The turf is scheduled to come in this week.  The bear also has been down at the new 16th tee carry.

Progress update

The new green sites are coming together nicely we will gradually continue to bring down the height off height until we are at the desired height.  We've not turfed anymore off the smaller areas as we will wait until the weather breaks and we have some rain forecast.   The 6th fairway is also coming together the drainage has been put into the catch basins and a new path has been put in coming off the tees.  We plan to work on this fairway again over the weekend using a machine called the "bear" this will lift a majority of stones and level off.  Weather permitting we will turf the landing area next week.   All new works are still expected to open on time.  Then the only exposed soil will be seeded and grown in.

The rest off the golf course is ticking away fine all areas have been cut and the definition has burnt in very well.  The greens are also playing well and are rolling at about 9.

Progress update

We have now turfed around both new green sites.   Any areas that are further out will be seeded out.  The newly reshaped bunkers on 3,4&10 have now been filled with sand and are in play.  This also goes for the fairway bunker on the par 5 14th this is also now in play.   We are going concentrate on course presentation for the rest off the week.  We will give the greens, tees, fairways, approaches and first cut off rough a cut.   If the weather continues to be dry we will also get the roller out off its winter slumber.

Next week we will finish off turfing the old  pond  at the par 4 16th.  We have got about 1/3 turfed so far.  We will also finish off the walk on to the tees so we can get this hole open to its full length.  The weather has been a bit wet over last  weekend thus we have not touched the 6th fairway.   The weather is too remain dry so next week we will get team Niblick to drain the catch basins and then give it a final prepare for turfing.  It's still a tad on the cool side for seed, we will hang on another couple of weeks to seed out all other applicable areas.