Flood update

At the height of the flood waters the only parts of the course above water were the clubhouse, machinery shed and the 12th,10th 13th and 16th greens. we managed to get all we could to the highest ground around the 13th green and machinery shed and thankfully they stayed dry.
many residence would have seen us out late on Tuesday night doing this.
To all the locals who had and have flood water through your places our thoughts are with you and we wish you all the best in the clean up effort and if there is anything we can do to help just sing out.
Today with the water receding the 18th and 1st green became accessible to clean up, and we have removed debris and mud from these surfaces, we will attend each green as soon as it becomes accessible.
Our task once the top foot or so (root zone) dries out, is to replace the potassium levels in the plant as these are extremely low after the plant has been submerged under water for more than a 6 to 12 hour period the plant actually expels this element as part of a survival mechanism thus it is critical that we get this back into the plant structure so the turf can function properly and take any wear and fight off disease and fungi which is about with these conditions
please be patient as we get the plant back to a healthy state as looks can be deceiving, in that if play or stress of any kind is placed on the turf before it is ready to handle it will be disastrous.
We are very lucky in that we keep and hold our turfs health as a priority and our thatch removal strategy has placed us in a good position to get the course back into play as quickly as possible.
the heights of cut will be high 5.5mm to start of and very slowly lowered over the next few weeks so as to not place the plant under any undue stress again this will be a slow process as the mowers have to be kept extremely sharp so as to not rip the leaf and lots of time put into height adjustment and sharpening of bedknives to achieve the results we want.
well that is all for today tomorrow brings new challenges .....till next time keep swinging pete