Tree pruning

Volunteers continue to do a great job pruning low branches on trees and cleaning up sticks around trees that have been there for years. Recently trees along the side of the short range have been pruned which opens the area up significantly and looks great. This will also allow green staff to mow closer to the base of the trees and improve the look even further. Less long grass around our trees also helps speed up play with less places for balls to get lost. Branches on a number of the large gum trees on the right of the 18th fairway have also been pruned and this has really improved the look of this area also. Great job by all those involved.

Right of the 18th fairway looking toward the green

Same spot looking away from the green with the branches and sticks piled up

Mower arrives

We have acquired a demo model Toro 3500D to replace the Toro Flail that we were using to mower around the banks of our greens/tees the first cut of rough and around green side and fairway bunkers. This mower will also be used to mow areas around the 2 putting greens and areas near the clubhouse. As you can see from the photos below the mower has 3 floating rotary decks allowing it to follow the contours of the ground and produce a much more even cut. The mower will also allow us to mow closer to the edges of bunkers and is a little wider which will save us some time mowing these areas. With our previous mowers that we used for this task you would have noticed some areas on banks scalped and other were the grass was 3 inches long. This should improve the quality of these surfaces markedly providing more consistent lies around the greens and first cut around each fairway.

Cam mowing around the back of the 14th green

Greens renovated

The greens have been renovated and after a day and being rubbed in twice they are looking pretty good. This renovation was much less aggressive than the spring renovation. We used a Verti-drain machine with thin solid tines causing less disruption to the surface. Fertiliser and around half the sand of the major renovation was then applied and rubbed in. After a couple more days with some growth and watering the sand should be well into the grass canopy.

In the next couple of weeks we will attack some of the areas of the fairways that died off as a result of the hot weather through January. These areas will be cored, scarified, seeded and top dressed lightly so that we can get a good cover of grass back on our fairways before winter.

There have been a number of valves getting stuck on over recent months causing areas of the course to be flooded on occasions. This is mainly due to grit and slime (technical term) that is pumped from the dam getting into the valves and causing them to stick on. Since the recent rains we are pumping cleaner water as the dam depth has increased. With this and the cleaning of a number of the problem valves we should see less of this in the future.

As part of our bunker plan we are also looking at filling and grassing bunkers that are hard to maintain and provide little strategic value to the hole. At this stage we have identified the back left bunker on the 18th green and the first of the 3 fairway bunkers on the 3rd hole. Both of these will be filled and grassed in the coming months.

18th green on Monday afternoon

Close-up of the 18th - same time as above

18th green 2 days later

Course Update

Recent rain has put greened up the course significantly over the past number of weeks. It has also topped up our supply of water as the main dam was getting very low towards the end of January. Our current supply of water will now get us through to next spring without significant rainfall. The heavy rain has however caused damage to our bunkers with further soil being washed off the faces of the bunkers and further contaminating the sand. Significant work will need to be done in the next couple of weeks to get the bunkers back into a reasonable shape.

The greens staff will continue our maintenance program this winter renovating and re-shaping the worst of the bunkers. Last winter 3 bunkers were completely renovated and this winter we plan to increase this number. This program will continue until all poor draining and shaped bunkers are renovated. The back left bunker on the 18th will be filled in as it requires considerable ongoing maintenance and adds little strategic value to the hole. This area will be turned into a grassy swale which will create a challenge when chipping up to a green that is sloping away from the player.

The greens will be renovated starting on Monday 18th March. The greens will be Verti-drained with solid tines smaller than the hollow tines that were used in the spring renovation. This renovation will be less disruptive to play as the holes will be smaller and less top dressing will be applied. Starting Monday the greens will be scarified, Verti-drained, fertilized and top dressed. The top dressing is then brushed into the holes each day for the remainder of the week.

You may have noticed that the garden beds on the second hole have now been removed and grass banks re-installed. This will reduce maintenance and enhance the attractiveness of this area. Other poorly maintained and difficult to maintain garden beds will also be removed for the same reason. The small garden bed behind the 7th white tee has now also been removed and this area will be grassed to reduce maintenance. A number of our volunteers have been instrumental in doing this work and continue to do a great job for the club.