Rain

We receive around 77 mm of rain from Friday night through to Tuesday morning this week which has helped green the rough up a bit and filled our dams. We had gone around 2 months with very little rain and this was much needed. The bottom dam has been overflowing since the rain and the main dam is within around half a metre from the overflow pipe. The course has now dried significantly and will be firm for the weekends golf. The staff have spent a lot of time draining water from the bunkers and these should be back in reasonable condition for the weekend also.

In the growing season the staff spend much of their time cutting grass. Below is a bit run done of the cutting program.

• Greens - cut 6 days a week at 3 mm
• Fairways - cut twice per week at 14 mm
• Greens collars and aprons - cut twice per week at 12 mm
• Tees - cut twice per week at 12 mm
• Long greens surrounds and first cut of rough around fairways - cut once a week at around 32 mm
• Secondary rough around fairways and tee carries - cut once a week at around 60-65 mm.
• Remainder of rough cut at the same height as the secondary rough on an as needs basis - this is usually about once very 2 weeks when it is growing
• Bunkers - raked twice per week with mechanical bunker rake

Poll results

Well the results of the poll on the site are nearly in. With a grand total of 7 votes 2 for a bit slow, 3 for about right and 2 for a bit quick I conclude that they are about right.

The course is getting a bit dry and hopefully we receive some good rain over the next few days as predicted.

Snooze Championships

Well, we have had the first week of the champs and and the course is looking in super condition for the event. The greens were running nicely with some of those down hill puts requiring a bit of attention. There were some pretty good scores on the Saturday with the course fighting back on Sunday with a few harder pin positions and firm fast greens. The greens will be double cut again each morning at 3 mm and should provide a good challenge. A few pictures of the course below. Click on the picture for a larger view.

You may have noticed a few green/blue lines around the margins of a number of the fairways. This is to indicate the fairway mowing lines. The general guidelines for the fairways are:

• Average width of around 25 metres – allowing for some narrower areas and wider areas depending on the hole and the distance from the tee (landing zones), Effective fairway watering is achieved in the area between the fairway sprinklers. In dry conditions any fairway outside this area will not receive adequate water to provide a quality surface. Our fairway sprinklers are currently 20-22 metres apart.
• Keep the fairways on the flat areas that had been designated as fairway – allow first rough cut to be on flat ground also
• Avoid bare areas caused by trees and tree roots
• Emphasise the shape of hole encouraging players to play a certain line especially on holes that have a dogleg
• Rough around bunkers - we are also providing and area of rough around the fairway and green side bunkers as the grass is often of poor quality close to the edge on the bunkers.

Club Championships

The course is in top shape for the club champs starting this weekend. The greens were dusted (light top dress) again on Monday to help smooth the surface and are now being cut at 3 mm which is the normal growing season height of cut. We have also been grooming the greens over the past couple of weeks to thin the grass and smooth the surface. Groomers are vertical blades that are mounted on the front of the greens mower just ahead of the cutting reels and slice into the grass canopy standing the grass up allowing more grass to be taken off the greens. The greens will be double cut on both Saturday and Sunday morning prior to play and should be slightly quicker and rolling more smoothly than in previous weeks.

All other shortly mown areas such as fairways, tees and collars and aprons of greens are being mown twice per week and have come up well after the renovations. The growth on the front 9 fairways is excellent and these have responded well after the renovation.

With the recent strong winds we have lost a number of trees and branches. Staff and volunteers have been working to clean up a lot of this and lets hope that the winds drop soon so we don't lose too many more trees.

Good luck to everyone playing over the next 2 weeks.

Course Update

I played today and noted that the fairways and greens are coming along well after the renovations. The back 9 greens were lightly top dressed on Tuesday to help fill the remaining core holes and the front 9 will be done in the next couple of days. The growth on the green is excellent and they are thickening up well. The greens are currently being cut at 4 mm down from 5 mm straight after the renovation. Next week the cutting heights will be lowered to the normal growing season height of 3.2 mm.

After the renovation the front 9 fairways have thickened up well with most of the bare areas now covered with grass. With the rain and warm weather the growth is significant and mowing fairways twice per week is barely enough to keep on top of things. The fairways are back to being mowed at 14 mm which is down from the 18 mm that they were mowed at straight after the renovation. Cam is considering spraying the fairways with a growth retardant to slow the growth a little. This is common practice on the greens during the growing season when the greens can grow significantly throughout the day.

With just over 80 mm of rain recorded over a few days early last week the 2 main dams are now at capacity. This rain has also given the course a good soak and helped kick the growth of the rough along. The rough is just started to thicken up and is now proving some penalty when missing the fairway. I have noticed that the scores are now starting to come down and we need the thicker rough to help provide some defence for the course. The rain has also compacted the old bunkers (un-renovated) and significant work will be done on the bunkers in the next week to get them into reasonable condition before the spring classic.

Please send through any questions or ideas that you may have about what you would like me to cover in future posts.