Course update

There's lots going on at the moment - not all of it good!

Work has been completed today on the construction of the 12th tee, as usual when a lorry load of turf turns up it starts to rain but we got the job done before the rain got very heavy.  The overseeding of the greens we did last month has been a great success with a really high germination rate, especially given that it was quite late in the season for this work.  Of course seasons aren't what they used to be and the first half of November has been incredibly mild with temperatures around 4° higher than average for the month.  The average is likely to drop later in the month but it looks likely that a few more weather records will fall.  We've already had the warmest November overnight temperature.
The first week of the month saw wet, humid and very warm weather with hardly any wind and this led to the first serious attack of fusarium patch disease on the greens for 17 years.  Many greenkeepers are reporting the worst disease outbreaks they've ever seen so we're not alone in facing this issue.  Once the weather conditions changed a little (drying winds and slightly cooler temperatures) the disease became less active and our naturally disease resistant turf is recovering.

Turfing the 12th tee

Germinating fescue seed

One of the worst patches of disease

Overseeding greens

The second overseeding of the greens has been completed this week.  After overseeding the greens were rolled and top dressed.  The greens will settle back to normal in a few days.
As per the early September overseeding post:
'The fine fescue grasses we are introducing will help us develop a denser more fine leaved sward.  Modern grass cultivars bred for use in golf greens perform much better than the varieties that were used many years ago when our greens were constructed.  This is not a quick fix but a long term strategy for developing smoother truer and more robust putting greens'.

The overseeding machine on the 9th green

12th tee construction

Work is well under way on the construction of the new 12th tee.  The base has been raised, the irrigation pipes installed and we've started bringing in and levelling the topsoil.  The turf is due to be delivered in mid November and given reasonable growing weather in the spring the tee should be ready for play by early summer.

Levelling the subsoil base

Weather summary for September

There was a dry start, a wet middle and a dry end to the month, the total rainfall was 48.2mm with 33mm of this falling between the 13th and 18th of the month.  The 48.2mm total was a little over the 43.2mm average for September.  The temperature was 1° below average for the month at 14°.  The highest temperature recorded was 20.9° on the 12th and the lowest was 6.7° on the 26th. 

Overseeding greens

We've just finished overseeding the greens with our new machine, which places the seed in shallow slits at the optimum depth for good germination.  The fine fescue grasses we are introducing will help us develop a denser more fine leaved sward.  Modern grass cultivars bred for use in golf greens perform much better than the varieties that were used many years ago when our greens were constructed.  This is not a quick fix but a long term strategy for developing smoother truer and more robust putting greens. 

The overseeding was followed by rolling to help restore surface levels and then top dressing.

The overseeder in action

Weather summary for August

Temperatures were close to normal with an average of 17.4° for the month, 0.1 degree cooler than July.  The highest temperature recorded was 25.1° on the 3rd and the lowest was 9.8° on the 17th.  Rainfall was higher than average with a total of 54.2mm, of this 13.8mm fell on the 18th.

One of our bunkers after heavy rain.  Getting all 100 bunkers back to normal afterwards is quite a task.

Craig Cameron

Craig is leaving us to take on a fabulous job as Head Greenkeeper at Golf Club St Leon-Rot in Germany. https://www.gc-slr.de/en/  The club has two 18 hole championship courses, a nine hole course and a children's course.  Craig will have a greenkeeping staff of 28 to manage the courses and machinery and facilities that most greenkeepers can only dream of.  The club is one of the very best in Germany and is hosting the Solheim cup in September, it has also been the venue for the German open four times.

Craig has worked extremely hard to reach this point in his career and thoroughly deserves this opportunity.  He's been a great asset to Aldeburgh Golf Club over the last six years and we'll miss him.  We wish him all the best and will follow his ongoing career with interest.

Here's a photo of the course - quite a contrast to Aldeburgh!

Weather summary for July

 July was a little warmer than the norm with an average temperature of  17.5°, the highest temperature was 28.9° on the 4th and lowest 9.2° on the 31st.  It was the wettest month of the year so far with a total of 61mm, well above the 45.9mm average for July.  Over half of the 61mm total fell over the weekend of the 24th / 26th.

Ragwort control

The annual ragwort pull is underway, we aim to remove it before the seed is set.  After many years of sustained effort there is far less ragwort on the course but it still takes a few days to remove most of it.

Danny and Shane pulling ragwort on the river course

Drone photos

Craig has  been using his drone to take some great aerial photos and video of the course.  Here are a few examples and a link  https://youtu.be/JthA-Oy7KUE   to a short video.

4th Green

12th Green

17th Green

Craig and drone (Craig is the one on the right!)