Overseeding / green speed

The results of the over-seeding work that was done on greens and approaches at the end of August have been excellent.  A high percentage of the seed has germinated and lines of new seedlings are visible, particularly in the early morning or late evening when the sun is low in the sky.  The downside has been that due to the light fertiliser applied before seeding, the top dressing applied after and the irrigation water applied to support the growth of new seedlings, the greens have been a little slower than normal for the last two weeks.  These effects are now much reduced and the greens are close to the speeds we would expect in the prevailing weather conditions.  The effect that surface moisture has on green speed was well illustrated today when the stimpmeter reading was around 8ft just after mowing when the grass was still damp from the heavy dew and 9ft around midday when the greens had dried out.

Lines of seedlings on a bare patch on the 6th approach

River course construction work

We're making good progress with the construction of the new 3rd green and approach and the 4th tee.  All of the subsoil levelling has been done and the topsoil (17 x 29 tonnes) has been spread on the fairway and green surround.  The irrigation pipes and valve boxes have been installed and the drainage pipes and non return valves are in place, to allow any future flood water to drain from the site.  This week we're spreading the root-zone soil on the green and tee, laying the erosion control matting on the river face of the bund and hydro-seeding the banks.  Hydro-seeding is the application of seed (salt resistant grass species in this case) in a mixture of water, mulch, fertiliser and binder.  It is sprayed on and helps the seed to stick to the slope rather than being washed away by the first rain shower.

Spreading topsoil on the fairway

Spreading rootzone mix on the green

Weather summary for August

It was a relatively wet month with 84.8mm of rain compared to the 47.6mm average for August.  The average temperature was 16.5° which is close to the long term average.  The maximum temperature was 24.2° on the 5th and the minimum was 7.6° on the 24th, this was the lowest August temperature recorded since our records started in 2000.

River course construction work

We've had a digger and dumper trucks on site this week digging out subsoil from the borrow area left of the 4th hole and transporting it to the site of the new 3rd green and 4th tee.  The ground level has been raised to create an area that will shed sea water in the event of future flooding and a low bund has been created to protect against flooding from normal tide levels.  The salt contaminated topsoil has been stripped off and it will be spread on the river side of the bund.

Bringing crag to the site prior to spreading and consolidating

Overseeding greens

Over the last two days we've been overseeding the greens using a machine that drops the seed into shallow slits.  The main purpose of this work is to increase the percentage of modern fescue grass cultivars in the greens.  These cultivars are very fine leaved and they produce a denser turf than the old cultivars.  Changing the botanical mix in the greens is a slow and challenging process but the long term reward will be smoother, truer and more consistent putting surfaces.

The over-seeder in action

Neil - rolling the greens after overseeding

River course construction work

After a few preliminaries over the last week or so work started today on the repair of the 3rd and 4th holes on the river course.  We had two large dumper trucks and a digger on site, excavating material from the pond on the 7th and transporting it to the 3rd green area.

Last week we were very optimistic about this work with a temporary bund being constructed on Hazelwood marshes and the marsh drying out nicely.  At the weekend the combination of very high tides and high winds breached the new bund and flooding on the course reached levels not seen since the tidal surge last December.  Needless to say, this has not created ideal ground conditions for construction work and the thunder storms with very heavy rain this afternoon added to our misery.

We've created a low bund and transported many loads of material to the site today and work continues tomorrow and early next week.  Hopefully with slightly lower tides due this weekend and the bund in place the area will dry out a little as it's quite a mess at present.

The flooding on the 3rd hole yesterday with the temporary green in the foreground

The breach in the temporary bund on Hazelwood marsh

Digging out the pond

Bunkers

We had 15.6mm of rain yesterday, most of it in a twenty minute period, the photo below shows what the downpour did to the bunkers.  It takes a lot of work to sort out over 100 bunkers when they look like this!

Weather summary for July

July was relatively warm with rainfall close to the average.  We had a total of 47.4mm of rain compared with the long term average of 45.9mm.  The last third of the month was dry with only 1.4mm of rainfall in the last 10 days.  The average temperature was 18.3° (long term average 16.8°) with a maximum of 27.7° on the 26th and a minimum of 9.1° on the 2nd.

Top dressing greens

The main course greens were verticut this morning and then top dressed.  The rain that started around 8.30 didn't help, as dry conditions are needed for brushing the material in but we'd nearly finished by then so it didn't cause us any major problems.  Verticutting is, as the name suggests a bit like mowing but with vertical rather than horizontal blades.  The aim is to refine the putting surfaces by removing horizontal growth and reduce the impact of the coarser grasses on ball roll.  The high percentage of fescue in our greens has a strong effect on the way that the ball rolls across the putting surface.  The ball tends to sit into the fescue giving very good trueness readings (lateral deviation) whilst the coarser grasses have a negative impact on smoothness (vertical deviation).  The smoothness readings are still good but this is an area where there is scope for improvement.  We need to be very careful with verticutting and other agressive treatments as the fescue is weakened by excessive wear.  We only verticut when the fescue is growing strongly so that we don't tilt the balance in favour of the coarser grasses.

Wild flowers

There are lots of wild flowers in the rough at present, adding a bit of colour to the course.
Here are a few examples

Common Toadflax

Harebell

Large Thyme