COURSE REPORT

Following one of the hottest and driest English summers on record, the grasses on areas we were unable to irrigate, particularly fairways, were seriously damaged by drought.  The last couple of months has seen cooler weather and some infrequent heavy rainfall, which has enabled some new growth to come through. We have enhanced this by scarifying, over seeding and fertilizing the fairways.  There has been good recovery from where we were at the end of the drought period and we hope for this to continue to improve before the end of the growing season, which is likely to be around the end of November.

Worms:  Infrequent rainfall, and relatively dry soil conditions, has benefited us in terms of keeping worm activity to a minimum.  A concern going into the winter months is that worms become active in areas with weak grass coverage and create worm casts which then cause muddy surfaces.  With all worm killing pesticides now banned from use, the reality is that there is a good chance of further damage to the course over the winter.  We will continue to be pro-active to limit this as much as possible.  Soil conditioners are available to supress worm activity and will be used on the worst affected areas.  We will look to brush areas ahead of cutting to avoid smearing of the casts and cut in the afternoon when the surfaces are drier, again to limit smearing.

Course Protection:  Traffic control this winter will be more important than ever.  The narrow holes and lack of space to control pedestrian traffic means that we try and limit the amount of post and rope for as long as possible to try and spread the wear although more post and rope is inevitable this year to try and protect the weaker areas.  There will be tighter restrictions on buggies and restrictions with trollies may also be required.  Electric and push trollies will be treated the same this year, so any restrictions will apply to all trollies, though these restrictions will be limited as much as possible. Your help and understanding will be much appreciated.  The green keeping team will try where possible to restrict machine usage also.

Greens:  The greens were verti drained last month and will be aerated again this month using our pro core.  It will be a solid tine with minimum disruption.  We will start using our walk behind mowers to cut the greens, and the height of cut will be raised to 4.5mm.  A winter feed will also be applied.

Tees/Approaches:  A soil conditioner will be applied to these areas, to help supress worms and a winter feed will also be applied.

Fairways:  The fairways will be aerated using our verti drain. This has been delayed this year due to the weak grass coverage and the fact that the ground is still too hard.

Path work:  Path work will be ongoing, including edging and adding material.

Leaves:  Leaf blowing and collection will be ongoing.  Getting leaves out of ditches is very time consuming and we will keep on top as best as possible, though blowing and collection takes priority during the main leaf drop period and when this slows down, we will look to do a full ditch clearance. 

I would like to record a big thank you to the ladies involved for their time and effort in doing a fantastic job on the shrub beds around the clubhouse.

Mark Ogden

Course Manager