Mid November wheres the rain?

Well its midway through November or Movember for those participating, and we are waiting for this rain, Yesterday we had to release some water out of our dams into the creek, as the pumps were loosing too much pressure in the lift of the water thus affecting the output and breakup at the sprinkler heads.
This week we have been doing allot of testing with the irrigation system and fixing many of the faults so there are some water patches out there where a sprinkler has stuck on over night, sorry about that, hopefully over the next few weeks we will get it all sorted.
The area on the right hand side of the 7th where the weeds were sprayed out has been cored, and had amendments added to the soil and the cores from some good areas rubbed into the bare areas, so this will see some good growth over the next 3 weeks. the next area we intend to tackle is the right hand side of the 8th. the areas we have already done on the 8th continue to grow in well with the first 2 areas fully grown in
The turfed areas on the fairways are now mostly down to fairway height and blended in very well in fact you can not pick the early areas done except after rain when going down the13th and thinking that there used to be a area that held water here once now it is just even fairway with good turf coverage.
We have coped allot of flack over the last 6t months about the way we turf.... but the key point is to remember that we are putting the turf on a sand base and this will compact around 30 to 40 % thus when the turf settles in and is mown down to the right height it will all blend in at the right levels, as is proof in the many areas around the course where we have turfed.
The greens are coming along well they are rolling true and with the verti-cutting they are running out better at the end of the putt, the speed is up to 9.2 feet and this will increase some more as we slow the growth rate down.
Thanks again to the guys who come out on Mondays at 1.00 pm to gives us a hand with doing the trenches, it is a great help to us, so if you read this and you can spare 1 hour on monday afternoon come along and meet the guys.  till next time .....keep swinging..pete

week 45 update

This week has been spent mowing and watering, with the dry weather the turf is in need of constant waterings.
we have been continuing with our turfing program with areas on the 3rd fairway near the green being done.

(Above - Here is the sand and gypsum being rubbed into the core holes on the next section on the 8th fairway)

(  Second photo  -  is of the second patch done on the 8th and is 2 weeks after treatment note all the new growth)

also with the turfing we have been doing areas with the verti-drain using core tynes to hollow tyne an area then move the good turf plugs (cores) into the areas that are thin or bare then topdressing and feeding these areas and it comes up good. the main areas we are concentrating on with this method is the 7th and 8th the first areas on the 8th we did 5 weeks ago are nearly all covered in in these areas we have also added gypsum to the soil profile to help break up the sediment left by the flood waters.
We also got in a verti-cut on the greens with out bringing up too much sand and with a few more it will continue to smooth out the roll on the greens. till next time ..keep swinging...pete

Week 42 update

Well another week done, and dusted.
firstly a big thanks to the volunteers who have been coming out on Mondays at 1.00 pm to help with the irrigation trenches, this week we got 2 trailers out. this done all the12th fairway and the bad ones in the gully on the 10th.
thanks again guys for your efforts if you have a hour to spare come along and give a hand.
we had some clean up this week of drains and storm grates, we also put out turf on patches on the 1st the 2nd and 3rd.
bunker faces were all fixed up on Monday, and weed control in the bunkers throughout the week
the back 9 tees got verti-cut , and we continue to feed and treat the flood patches and we are seeing some good growth in these areas and these patches are getting less and less. and with the fertilizer and amendments the other fairways are thickening up and providing good turf for golf play.
next week we will get the verti-drain out and do some more areas.
till next time keep swinging....pete

verti-cut tees

This week we managed to find time after the storm clean up to verti-cut the front 9 tees. We plan to do the back 9 next week. this task soaks up allot of man hours as the tee has to be dry before we start then the tee top is verti-cut we usually  we go 2 ways, then a clean up mow comes along after the tee is verti-cut and this usually removes 2 or 3 catchers of thatch,
 The tees mower  then follows and gives the tee top a final cut .to do 9 holes with out any hold ups takes approx  4 hours so with 3 staff tied up thats a total of 12 manhours and the reason we do this is to remove thatch from the tee, the verti-cutting promotes lateral growth of the turf, it assists in leveling and thins out the sword of the turf which will provide long term a better tee surface.

First mow after Reno

Well we have set a new record with the first cut on the greens 7 days after renovation.
Today we got the rest of the bunkers faced and cleaned up, along with allot of the mowing done late this afternoon.
The greens continue to do well and with that first light cut going well, we will cut them again on Tuesday afternoon then let them rest for Wednesday then hopefully get to lower them a bit for Thursday.
please note at this stage we can only mow when the leaf is dry as any dew on the plant will cause the sand to stick to the rollers and sit on top of the plant. so this weekend they will not be mowed.
but the way they are coming back it wont take long to be good again.
This is why it is so important to have the turf growing fast coming into renovations as it cuts down the recovery time significantly .pete

The greens on Friday came up well after their rub in with the finishing mat.
The storm on Saturday has put a spanner in the works with most of today (Monday) taken up with repairing bunkers, picking up debris, and cleaning up storm damage and with more storms predicted for Thursday and Friday it looks like we will loose allot of time to this repair work this week. pete

Reno time again

Well without having the use of contractors this renovation it has been a testing time to get equipment together to do the renovations at all. a big thanks to all those who came to our aid in getting this together.
also thanks to the ground staff for coming in on the Sunday afternoon (giving up the footy grand final) to set up the machines and familiarize themselves with the operations of the equipment which had only just got here, thus giving us a good start on the Monday.
pictured here is the scarrifier and corer we used