Looking forward. Improvments and projects this Fall/Winter.

In the hope that a blog from myself will be half as read as a blog from Sydney. I thought I would take some time to keep all of you in the loop with what we are planning over the next few months.

While some of you will be starting to think about putting your clubs away for the darker months Brett, myself and the grounds team are excited and looking forward, as this is the time when we are starting to think about improvement projects and renovations.

In recent years we feel we have utilized this time well and have made some good changes to the infrastructure of the course along with a some sensible improvements that will stand the test of time.

 This year we have three main areas we are wanting to tackle and I will quickly go through each of them in turn.

Practice Facility Tee Decks

Camber on Tee Deck

This past spring we leveled the Academy tee deck, we considered this to be a big success. Years of divot repair and Top Dressing has put a substantial camber on all of the decks. The pros from our point of view were

• We used a lot of the striped sod on course to re-fresh high traffic areas and to sod the top of the 13 tee renovation
• The sand that we took away from the one deck was recycled and lasted us a good 2 months in Practice Facility divoting this year.
• Increased and more level surface area for players to practice on and a slower rotation of divider movement front to back.

Leveling completed

As you have probably noticed the tee decks are now complete and we are just awaiting the germination of our seed. Thank you for your patience during the renovations and putting up with the noise while you were practicing. 

Lot of sand to re-use

16 Green Collar Dam and Bunker

This one is a personal favourite of mine, our little yet perfectly formed 16th hole is one of my favourite holes, aesthetically speaking. The problem with it's size it that the problems seem to be magnified. A lot of you will know the we struggle to keep decent turf at the front of the green. There are many factors effecting this, all culminating in to one problem. Drainage, Sunlight and a Collar dam. We have fixed the drainage and we have removed several trees to the right to allow for better sunlight and air flow.

Problem Area

 Collar dams build up over time around the edge of greens, there are many reasons for this slow elevation of the greens surround and we have several greens with this issue. Removing these dams is time consuming and disruptive. The effect they have on the green can be quite severe, rain/irrigation water gets trapped behind the higher collar and just sits on the green. Over time the ground stays saturated and the turf begins to rot. Removing the dam is the only way to allow the excess water to run off the green and not pool. Other greens we would like to do this to are 1,8 and 11 and we hope to get to these also in the coming months.

                   Collar dam and sand build up

As well as the dams we plan to incorporate the renovation of the front bunker, years of sand built up is evident on the collar and this extremely high play bunker is most definitely showing the signs of how "popular" it is. As mentioned we will incorporate the two separate projects and do them both at once. The renovation of the bunker will allow for a re-design of the approach and the re- design of the approach will allow of the removal of the collar dam.

Tired bunker in need of face lift

Obviously during this time we will provide a temporary green short of the bunker area. We know this isn't ideal and we ask for your patience during this renovation which we will try to do, as always, quickly and efficiently in order to re-open the hole.

Soil and Seed

You may have noticed that we are utilising soil and seed in high traffic/bare areas around the course. We ask that you please stay outside the ropes that we have put up and help us to give the seed the best possible chance to grow. The reason behind doing this now is that we hope to get the grass established before the temperatures drop so that it is more able to withstand the drier conditions of the Summer when it rolls around.

Other smaller installations and projects include;

• Continued installation of upgraded isolation valves for the Irrigation system
• Improved drainage around 14 tee
• To fix the gate at the pump house
• Root pruning around some of our greens and rough areas
• To remove some of the dead or dying trees around the course

So as you can see we never stop here on grounds we are always trying our hardest to improve the course and make it better and better. I am sure by now you are all very bored of having me prattle on so here is a short video of Sydney chasing the Geese. 

Thanks and we will see you out there.

No fall greens aeration? The Superintendent must have gone mad!

Ahh, the season is beginning to wind down, trees are losing their leaves and it's the time of year where we pull out the aerators and start making a mess of the greens. For some reason though, this fall seems different? I don't hear any aerators or see any evidence of greens aeration, something must be wrong!?!

No, nothing is wrong, in fact, everything is right. We've been monitoring our profile in the greens over the past few years and have noticed we are in a very good state agronomically and felt we can push through the fall without pulling a core. 

In recent years we've made great strides in reducing our organic matter in our greens to below 2% via light and frequent topdressing. We've also found less intrusive ways of relieving compaction through pencil and deep tining aeration. One other significant change we've made of late is with our fertility programs. We've dramatically reduced our fertility inputs throughout the shoulder seasons, which I feel helps reduce organic matter production. 

With the goal of reducing or eliminating conventional core aeration, we will be continuing with these programs while monitoring our soil profiles throughout the year to ensure we can produce the best possible playing surfaces for you, our guests. So with that being said, come on out and enjoy smooth greens for the remainder of the year!