Course update

Well that raps up the Snooze Club Championships for another year. The course held up pretty well with few players breaking their handicap and the course providing a good test of golf. The greens were a bit quicker being double cut each morning and the rough a bit of a penalty. The scratch rating for the blue course is 74 and the daily ratings for the four days were 73, 74, 74 and 75.

Now that the championships are over what does the maintenance program look like. The greens will now going back to being cut 5 times per week. The greens are normally mowed on Saturday (single cut) and not Sunday unless there is a special event. We are also now not mowing the greens on Thursday and they are rolled with our light weight roller. This helps smooth the surface and increase the roll without having to mow. The greens were dusted (light top dress) between the the weekends of the championships and we will continue this once per month in the growing season. This helps with smoothing the surface and increases firmness slightly.

The growth of the rough should slow now with the drier and warmer weather we are starting to experince. The cut of rough to the tree line is done weekly and if we don't get any significant rain only the watered areas will remain as thick. This should make it a little easier to play when off the fairway. PS. If you are having trouble hitting it out of the rough, you could try a lesson from Matt to see if you can straighten up your drives. You could also try hitting a 7 iron from the rough and not expect to be able to hit your 3 wood from anywhere on the course.

For those avid readers I have included a link to an article about green firmness. I thought it was a good read.

Firmness First

Club Championships approaching

Club Championships start this weekend with preparations at full steam. We lost Tuesday due to rain with around 32 mm falling over a couple of days on the course. This has given the course a good soak and topped up the dams again. This rain will get the rough growing rapidly and will take days to get on top of it. The large area mower will be going constantly over the next 2 weeks to keep on top of the rough.

So what else has been going on:

The bunker on the 9th has been completed and is now in play. The recent rain has drained through the sand immediately providing a good playing surface. Some work still needs to be done around the surrounds of the bunker and this area is still GUR with a drop area at the front of the green.

The greens - these have been cut down to normal playing height of 3 mm for a couple of weeks now. The groomers are being used each week to help smooth the surface and they are being rolled on Thursdays to help smooth the surface also. The greens will be double cut each morning of the champs and should provide a good roll. Cam is also looking to dust the greens early next week depending on the weather conditions. Primo has also been applied to the greens and fairways to reduce the vertical growth of the grass and help provide a better surface all day.

The fairways have also been sprayed with a herbicide to kill the broad leaf weeds and will be mown twice more this week to provide a good playing surface.

With the rain a number of the bunkers filled with water. These have been now pumped out and with some further drainage and drying weather should be in reasonable condition for the weekend, Let's hope we don't get any further substantial rain.