Head Greenkeeper’s Blog – Winter 2018

The drought of the summer is now a distant memory and normal service has resumed with the weather. November has been wet, but the course has stood up well to the change in conditions. To date December has been dry which has provided us with the opportunity to carry out some of the planned winter projects.

Winter Projects

The first tees (yellow and white) have been levelled and new turf laid. The turf is made up of the following grass species: 25% chewings fescue, 25% slender creeping red fescue, 20% smooth stalked meadow grass & 30% perennial rye grass. 

This work will both improve the playability and aesthetics of the area, our first impression to members and their guests. The final stage to complete the project will be to level and turf the Ladies tee which will take place next winter.

Bunker LHS 2^nd green

The left hand 2^nd bunker has been rebuilt and turfed. The photograph immediately below illustrates how the old bunker lost its shape with a sand face. The second photograph shows the reshaping of the bunker with a grass face construction. Bunker sand will be added at a later date, however the area will remain out of play as G.U.R. until it is ready to be reintroduced.

Bunkers on any golf course take up a huge amount of time and resources. This is the case whether they are grass faced like the majority of our bunkers, or sand faced. The depth of sand in a particular area of a bunker can be affected by the way the bunkers are raked or by high winds if the bunker is exposed. Sand levels are regularly checked and topped up if needed. During the winter the sand may also become more compacted with rain water.   

Greens   

 

The greens are in really good shape for the time of year and feedback from members is extremely positive and greatly appreciated. The coverage and overall plant health is strong, which is desired by greenkeepers across the U.K. for the extremities of winter. The height of cut is currently at 5mm and it is intended that this will soon be raised to 5.5mm. 

The greens have been sprayed monthly with a tough turf package. This consists of chelated iron, phosphate and potassium.  Applying these products hardens the grass plant for the winter.

Soil temperature on the greens continues to be recorded on a weekly basis. Currently as I write this the temperature of the soil on the 11^th green is 4 degrees Celsius. This time of year there is little growth on the greens but the grass plant puts a lot of resources into root development. This root development is encouraged by aeration. Slit tining is carried out on a regular basis when weather conditions allow. This is a great form of aeration during the winter months, with very little surface disruption.                 

Walled Garden green

The green in the Walled Garden has made a great recovery from last year’s take all patch disease. This disease attacks new greens, mainly bent grasses that have high pH values. This disease can be devastating as shown in the photo. Lots of hand seeding and some TLC made sure the green has made a full recovery. Spoon feeding every two weeks using sulphur-based products and some manganese helped prevent any repeat attack of take all patch this year.  

 

     

Tees/ Approaches        

Winter tee positions are now in use, allowing the main tees a chance to recover from the tough summer they endured. All tees have been solid tined using the Procore 648 aerator. An intensive wetting agent was applied to the tees allowing water to infiltrate into the soil profile more easily and speeds up the recovery process.

All approaches have been solid tined using the Procore 648 aerator and vertidrained. Like the tees an intensive wetting agent was applied to all approaches.

Bare areas on approaches that were affected from the drought will be turfed. Parts of the 11^th and 16^th tees will also be turfed. These areas will be not be in use until the turf to become established.

General maintenance

All course furniture is brought in over the winter and given maintenance. The seats, ball washers, bins, marker poles, yardage posts and tee signs will all be treated ready for the season.

Our maintenance and storage facility, the sheds, receives a de clutter during the winter months. All machines are serviced in house and any repairs carried out by our latest team member, greenkeeper/mechanic Paul Walton. All machines are deep cleaned which gets them looking nearly new. Below is a before and after photo of cylinders from a greensmower.

The pending purchase of a grinder which will arrive in the next couple of months is a great addition to the fleet. This will allow us to sharpen cylinders on site and therefore do so more regularly. Mowing greens is one of the most important maintenance practices carried out on sports turf. Healthier turf is produced from sharper cutting units. The grinder will provide the facility for our mowers to be sharper.

Rough

All long areas of rough have been cut with our Amazone flail mower or strimmed. This management of scrub and rank grasses encourages flowers and finer grasses to thrive in these areas. This is repeated every year.        

Wildlife

Recently there have been some areas of damage to the course caused by wildlife. I have recently had use of a remote wildlife camera, so installed it close to one of the areas that was being damaged. The camera caught the culprit confirming what we thought. Badgers are protected under the Protection of Badgers Act 1992. They are digging for worms in the turf, so some damage will be inevitable. I have recently read that they are not as active during the winter months, so let’s hope for a cold winter to keep them below ground.       

Finally, I would like to thank all the members of Hexham Golf Club who have supported the team and I throughout my first year as Head Greenkeeper. The extremes in weather conditions at times made it a difficult one but I hope you would agree that the course has stood up well, thanks to the efforts of the team.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

David and the Greenstaff                   

     

                                                              Blog – Summer 2018

Well what a challenging year it has been so far for growing fine turf. The extremes of the hot spell we experienced in June and July was a testing time to keep moisture in the greens. The greens staff worked split shifts to apply water to the greens in both the morning and evenings. This was essential work to help keep the greens to a good standard. A monthly wetting agent program has also been carried out, this helps reduce dry patch and maximises grass health. Some members were intrigued as to why we were hand watering as opposed to using the automatic system. Hand watering is the best method of applying water, although time consuming, the hot spot areas are targeted more effectively. The automatic system was also used but this method concentrates the water mainly to the centre of the greens with the edges of greens therefore receiving less. Although ultimately it coped, our irrigation system was really tested during the drought conditions, highlighting repairs that were needed to maintain the aging system. These were eventually completed once we could allow for the 48 hour downtime the system needed to allow repairs to be carried out.

One of the first tools I requested following my appointment as Head Greenkeeper was a moisture meter. This has proved to be a valuable tool with readings from the greens recorded every day allowing water to be used more efficiently. Below is a graph showing some data for Volumetric Water Content (VWC) from the greens.

                              

                                          Fig 1: VWC averages recorded from the 11^th green

Greens

During the hot spell the height of cut (HOC) on the greens was raised to reduce stress on surfaces. Our everyday HOC throughout the season is 3.5 mm reduced to 3.0 mm for events such as the Club Championship, Captains’ Days etc. Golfers often enquire as to why the greens cannot be cut at 3.0 mm all season. From a performance point of view lowering to 3.0 mm does increase speed on surfaces. From an agronomic perspective this is unsustainable. That extra half millimeter may not appear to be much but in fine turf this is huge. Added stress to the grass plant with the lower cutting height brings more risk of turfgrass diseases such as fusarium and anthracnose. More inputs are required i.e. fertilsers, topdressings, water use and fungicides. More organic matter (thatch) will be accumulated from the increased inputs. I will use the example of a marathon runner who can only reach peak fitness about 4 times a year. I have used this example as greens will be peaked for certain points in the Club calendar. The greens have been very consistent throughout the season and have stood up well to the extremes of mother nature.

The rest of the course really suffered during the drought, particularly the tees and approaches. The fairways were burnt off but are recovering well after the recent rainfall. A tractor mounted over seeder will be brought in at the beginning of September to over seed selected tees and the areas that have suffered the most. All these areas will also be aerated. Both processes will help the recovery on these areas as we go from the close of the season into winter.

                                               Fig 2: Drone shot taken on the 29^th June 2018

Greens maintenance

The week commencing 10^th September greens maintenance will be carried out. The tasks include: 

·         Double verticut

·         Vertidraining

·         Solid tining

·         Topdressing  

This essential process is very beneficial in promoting good putting surfaces and overall longer term health of the greens. The process will take 2-3 days, weather permitting, hopefully allowing us to be back on the main greens before the end of the week.

The Open

I was privileged to be asked to work the Open Championship at Carnoustie in July. To be part of the team was a great experience and to see what goes into the worlds biggest golf event was amazing. I spent 10 days with a great bunch of fellow greenkeepers from all the other Open venues and one lad from Royal Adelaide in Australia. It certainly put Hexham on the map, as these guys were asking about the Club and what it was like. My answer was come and play it you will not be disappointed, which some of them will do in the future.    

              

Fig 3: At the Barry Burn, Carnoustie from left to right. Members of greenstaff from Hexham, Royal St Georges, Royal Adelaide, Trump Turnberry, Royal Portrush, Royal Liverpool, Muirfield, Royal Birkdale      

I would just like to finish by saying a big thank you to all the members that have supported myself and my team this year and enjoy the rest of the golf season.

David Thompson

Head Greenkeeper                                           

                                                                        

Spring Blog

As I write this blog we have had a week of warm weather. This winter has been a test for the golf course as we have experienced some harsh weather conditions. The course was under heavy snow for eight days after the beast from the east, followed by lots of frosts, then heavy rain which saturated the course on more than a few occasions. The experts in the sports turf industry say we are a month behind this year compared to last year in terms of growth and soil temperatures.

We were asked to, and delivered improved winter greens this year and the feedback to this has been very positive. Like the majority of golfers I don’t enjoy playing on winter greens but having them allows the course to stay open when conditions are at their worst.

The aim now, with the cold weather hopefully behind us, is to improve the course aesthetically. A full cut of the course was carried out last week. The majority of tees were put back onto main tee boxes. New flags and hole cups and all golf course furniture was put out. Unfortunately the majority of ropes and hoops will be staying out for the time being as the course needs some protection and the traffic still needs to be managed around walkways and slopes.    

Greens maintenance

We took advantage of a break in the weather, which allowed us to get our maintenance done to the greens. A double verticut was carried out in March. This removes any thatch that has built up over the winter months and smooths the surfaces out long term.

                         

A week later the greens were vertidrained, solid tined and 30 ton of topdressing was applied. An application of sulphate of ammonia and ferrosol (liquid iron) was applied as doing this mechanical work can put added stress on the grass plant. A granular fertiliser was applied two weeks ago and got watered in nicely as the forecast was right, it never stopped raining. The height of cut on the greens is now 4.5 mm and I will be bringing that down as cutting frequency increases.  

                                             

The benefits from the ecology work carried out recently can clearly be seen around the course. Lots of colour is now visible on banksides which were previously thick of scrub. A big thank you to all members who donated bird boxes as part of the national nest box week. They have been put up in various locations around the course and many are already in use.    

                             

We were pleased to welcome Paul Walton, who joined our team a few weeks ago and he has settled in well. Paul is a greenkeeper/mechanic and is a great addition to the team. He has already fixed some machines which would have been done in the past by an outside mechanic. Paul is also very keen on the turf side of things. We are now up to a full-strength team of five, ready for the season.

Finally, I would like to thank everyone for their support and patience over recent months and wish all our members a great golfing season.

David Thompson

Head Greenkeeper