Dear members,
February was a busy golfing month with club championships, pennant and numerous large social groups taking to the course over the majority of the weekends. With the large increase in golfers we are seeing compared to past years it has been interesting to see the impact this has had on course conditions and in particular the greens with the additional traffic. I’ve observed a noticeable change in the wear and tear the greens have received (particularly around the hole) and adjustments have needed to be made to accommodate this. This is obviously a good problem to have and we can only hope that the numbers continue to grow well into the future.
GREENS
As I touched on we have been forced to increase our fertiliser rates on greens to enable them to stay healthy and strong with the larger numbers we’ve received. Foot traffic puts additionally stress on the plant and with more traffic comes a greater need to feed the grass accordingly. Where in years gone by we would typically apply between 5-6 kgs of Nitrogen over all greens per month this has almost doubled in the past few months to around 10kgs.
The adjustments has seen some great results and the greens have continued to perform beautifully through such a busy period. At this stage we are targeting our greens renovations on April 8th but with the freedom to now do this without the need of contractors this date could change depending on a number of factors.
FAIRWAYS/TEES/SURROUNDS
As is always the case the santa ana surfaces around the course are in excellent shape but with the current dry spell we are facing some of the cool season grasses are beginning to struggle. This is particularly evident in our older tees (5,14,17,18) where the combination of poor grass type, high traffic and the inability for the soil to take up water due to heavily compacted soil causes less than ideal growing conditions. It is not due to lack of water as some have suggested to me over the past few weeks with these tees getting nightly watering from anywhere between 15-20 minutes at a time.
A proposal is being considered to continue on with the reconstruction of a number of these tees to improve their condition/appearance and importantly match up with the many tees that have already been improved to a higher standard.
DRAINAGE
After roughly a 2 month delay from the drainage contractors they finally got their works underway late last month and are now full steam ahead. As I write this (5th March) they have now completed holes 2,3,6 and 17 and pleasingly we have come in well under budget at this stage. This has enabled us to continue on with more drainage in problem areas which we will see in the coming days/weeks on holes 9 and 7. Exactly how much drainage gets done will depend on when we reach our target budget for the works.
With some stunning weather on the horizon I hope you are all out enjoying the course and playing some good golf to boot.
Ryan Hammond
DG&CC Course Superintendent
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