Greens recovered well

The greens have recovered well after the renovations and are now back in top condition. Can you ensure that the surfaces of the greens as smooth as possible by fixing any pitch marks that you notice on the greens. The greens staff will be light on numbers over the Christmas break and will be concentrating on mowing as much of the in play grass as possible. Anyone that has any spare time is welcome to volunteer mowing some rough or helping out with a number of other tasks. The jobs are never ending. Please contact Warren or Sue in the office if you can help. Merry Christmas to all.

Rain, Rain and more Rain

The golf course received around 90 mm of rain mainly overnight Friday and into Saturday morning. Both dams are now over flowing and the course has received a very good soak. The bunkers and a number of the paths have been damaged and will require some repair this week but overall the rain was very welcome. Below are a couple of photo with the water up to the 150 post on the 18th fairway and a river of water flowing out of the main dam under the bridge on the 9th.

18th fairway 150 marker

Water under the bridge on the 9th

New Mower arrives

Our new fairway mower has arrived and is in action cutting the fairways. We are currently cutting the fairways twice a week at 14 mm. There is a noticeable improvement in the cut with the new machine. This will now give us a chance to do an overhaul on the old fairway mower. We have also purchased a used Lastec with 7 floating decks that cuts 11 feet wide and will be used to trim the large areas of rough surrounding fairways, tee carries and other large open areas. Here it is below.

The new fairway mower looks something like this one.

Rain hinders renovations

It rained on and off on Tuesday when the remainder of the greens were to be renovated. This has meant that the green staff have had to work a long day on Wednesday to complete the fertilising, top dressing and rubbing in of the greens on the back nine. The sand on the greens that had already been top dressed has become quite wet from the rain and will need some additional work to rub into the core holes over the next couple of days.

Renovations begin

With the conclusion of the Club Championships the renovations of the greens will begin. This week the greens will be scarified, cored, amendments added and then top dressed. The front nine will be closed on Monday and the back nine on Tuesday for this major renovation to take place.

Club Championships

The course is ready for the Club Championships. The greens have been groomed during the week and will be groomed again next week to thin out the grass and help smooth the surface. The greens will then be double cut on both Saturday and Sunday morning each weekend. Can members continue to fix their pitch marks on the greens and any other noticeable marks as this will help keep the surface smoother and help the roll of your putts.

Bunker on 18

The work on the bunker on 18 has now been completed raising the level of the base adding new drainage and then new sand. The sand will take a short time to pack down with traffic and rain. We had around 11 mm of rain last night which should help. The bunker is back in play with some of the turf around the bunker still GUR.

Paths

There has been some work on a couple of the paths. The path on the 3rd tee has been widened where buggies have been wheeled onto the white tee and a enlarged area has been created at the top of the 6th tee path. Could members help to reduce the wear on tees by not wheeling their buggies and driving carts onto the tees. The photo below shows the new enlarged area at the 6th tee.

Renovations

The short surrounds, aprons and tees have now renovated and should be back in good shape for the Spring Classic on the October Long Weekend. The coring helps relieve compaction and allows air and water to get into the root zone more easily and encourage growth. 

The greens will be renovated straight after the club championships. This will include scarifying, coring, fertilising and topdressing. We have left this until after the championships so that the greens remain in top condition for two of our major events.

Welcome to the MCC Grounds Blog

On this site we aim to provide information to our members about what is going on around the golf course. To open I have provided a photo of the renovation work being carried out on the bunker on the 18th hole. The base of this bunker is being raised considerably so that players can get in and out of the bunker more easily and the bunker is able to drain to the dam more efficiently when the dam is full. This will also help with maintenance of the bunker enabling the power bunker rake easier access.