Course update

Course Update 23/06/17

What a week it’s been!!!

With temperatures hitting early 30’s this week it’s been a challenge. I have spoken to a few course managers around the area and they are all praying for a little rain.

With the very high temperatures this week I feel the course has held up very well. I have made a change in our fertiliser/wetting agent program over the last few months and feel we are benefiting from this, especially on the fairways where we have no irrigation. I say a change in our fertility program, meaning this is the first time since I have worked at Broadstone that we have applied a wetting agent to the fairways.

Wetting agent helps to 
• Reduce water runoff on sloped areas
• Enhance penetration and distribution of water, Nutrients and chemicals into the soil.
• Improve nitrogen efficiency
• Reduces the need of water to the plant by 25%

Wetting agent is applied throughout the golf course in conjunction with our fertiliser program.
These management practices are also seeing benefits on the greens, where whilst we are all sorry for any inconvenience caused by putting in aeration holes during the year, we are starting to benefit with the water, fertiliser and roots being able to get through the soil profile.

On the subject of greens, we are pleased with the health and ball roll on the greens, although we will continue to tweak feeding, watering and cutting practices to improve the consistency and speed. This has included some afternoon cuts, (although not this week due to the heat in the middle part of the day) and we will also start introducing the roller back to the greens for occasional use. Now that the health of the greens has improved, this useful tool for getting a little more pace and improving smoothness will hopefully keep the greens going in the right direction and also that little tweak up for the bigger events.

We will continue to look at all areas and improving the golfing experience. Next week, this will include dealing a bit of uneven growth on a few collars which is in hand with brushing, top dressing and extra fertiliser to bring the differential growth back together. The whole course has had a selective weed killer applied to it which will knock a lot of the unwanted weeds back. The greens are the only area that has not been treated as any weed is handpicked by the green staff.
I am trying to play in the scratch roll up on a Tuesday night most weeks and either on these evenings or at other times, please feel free to come and say hello as it would be nice to meet a few of you and listen to any comments or just speak about my plans for the course.

I will be putting the flag in old 9th for you to see our spare green at the weekend. This green as stated before, is where we are heading with our greens. It has a small percentage of poa in but is predominantly Brown top bent, which gives the ball a lovely roll