Course update

The course has recovered well from the big wet a few weeks ago. The bulk of the course has dried out with only the patch across the 15th fairway and a couple of small wet spots near the 1st and 16th greens. Some damage was caused to a number of the greens with water sitting on them for a period of time. These areas have been scarified, seeded and lightly top dressed to encourage some new growth.

The fairways, tees and green surrounds are in the process of being spot sprayed to kill the clumps of paspalum that have developed. This is an ongoing process that we need to do each summer to keep the paspalum at bay on our closely mown areas.

The immediate rough is now down to a manageable level and with the cool weather closing in should be able to be maintained more easily.

Fairway marking - you will have noticed an few lines around the margins of some of the fairways and a few areas of rough mown short to be maintained as fairway. We are re-aligning a number of the fairways as some have become wider than needed over years of mowing and to keep the fairways within the irrigated areas.

Rain

After a reasonably dry period the green staff were able to get the course in good condition for the Pro-Am. However a couple of days after the event we received over 250 mm of rain over a week. This has cause considerable damage to paths and bunkers again. It seems a never ending job for the staff to get these in reasonable and safe condition. The course is still sodden and the fairways and many areas of rough have not been able to be cut in the past week. Hopefully I will be able to get some photos of the flooding to post on the site soon.

Green maintenance

The greens have experience a lot of growth recently due to the rain and ideal growing temperatures. Here is a bit of a run down on the weekly program for the greens which is also dependant on the weather (rain mainly).

• Mowed 6 days a week at 3.2 mm (usually not mowed on Sunday)
• Groomed on Thursday and Friday each week whilst mowing - the groomers are attached to the front of the greens mower reels and slice the grass slightly to remove a bit of the grass thickness - this encourages growth and helps smooth the greens
• Light top dressing - this was done a couple of weeks ago to help reduce thatch, smooth out the greens and increase firmness slightly - we will look at doing this again in the next couple of weeks

Hopefully we don't get too much rain overnight so that we can let the greens dry out a little - this will help increase the speed of the greens and reduce the size of pitch marks. Pitch marks are a major issue causing balls to bump around and thus slowing the green down. Light topdressing will help fill these pitch marks. Can players also be vigilant in fixing any pitch mark they notice on the greens as this will help keep the greens smoother for everyone.

Fixing paths and bunkers

In the last few weeks the green staff have been fixing a number of the ends of paths. This is to stop the gravel from the paths continually washing onto the start of the fairways. Some couch grass has been acquired and this is being used to turf some of these areas. Paths that have been attended to so far are the 16th, 7th, 8th and 4th. A number of others will also be fixed where gravel washing onto the start of the fairway is an issue.

The paths and bunkers have taken a beating over the last couple of weeks with 2 solid downpours of around 40 mm each which have washed out paths and turned bunkers into swimming pools. The amount of time spent attending to the paths and bunkers has been huge over the last couple of months with a number of large downpours over the Christmas period. Looks like there is more rain on the way tonight. Let's hope it isn't too much.

Path on the 7th

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.