Course update

Golf Course Update 16/07/17

Another beautiful week for golf with a day of rain thrown in to help the greenkeepers. 23 mm of rain in 24 hours has helped no end.
It was a busy weekend with the Club Championships, but it went well for us with excellent weather, if a little too warm, helping greatly. Starting at 5am both days we double cut and rolled the greens, changed holes and raked the bunkers. We hope you enjoyed the course during the event.
Having only been in the position for 4 months now and I am generally very happy with where the golf course is, although getting impatient with all the bits I would like to do with more manpower and budget, welcome to the world of a greenkeeper! I thought I would give you a little insight today into my cutting regimes over the course and heights of cut at present.
Greens -  4mm

• Double cut in morning (2 directions) with a possible cut in the afternoon, depending on golf,      weather and if needed

Approaches - 9 mm

• Cut 4 times a week

Tees - 9 mm

• Cut 4 times a week

Fairways - 13 mm

• Cut twice a week depending on weather conditions. Mainly dryness.

Semi Rough - 1.75”

• Cut once a week

Rough - 5”

• Cut when needed, we look at areas of high use and keep them cut and allow other areas to grow naturally.

All of my experienced staff are able to do all of the jobs, although we tend to keep certain staff on certain areas. This then helps give a more detailed view as for example, each day the person who is cutting greens during that period can report to me any changes he sees over the week. This could be disease, dry spot, firmness, lateral growth, smoothness, weak areas, pitch marks etc. If I change the staff each day this may be missed.
The bunkers are raked 7 days of the week. I know we all have a desire to see these hazards improved and I understand this but it is neither an easy or quick job. I have 2 members of staff working on them daily from stone picking to depths.
I am currently getting as many of the team together for an hour each afternoon to go to a bunker and give it a full stone pick and move sand around. As you can see in the pictures we are having are having great success. I know they may appear again due to the bases in them but until this is rectified I will do my hardest to get as many out as possible.

Whilst the bunkers will not see amazing improvements until they are fully refurbished, this increased stone picking effort and some other plans we have for the coming weeks should hopefully see some short-term improvements.
You may have seen the 3rd lake is a little low, we are well aware of it. It’s a bigger problem than first thought but we have a plan in action for next week.
Just as a heads up for early next week, we will be carrying out a small amount of aeration work to the greens, to help further promote the bent conversion. This also helps the consistency of the sward and ball roll and dilutes any unwanted thatch we have in our soil profile. This will not be massive holes and lorry loads of sand but either a micro core or pencil tine and a light/medium dressing, depending on weather and soil conditions on Monday/Tuesday. We will do our best to keep disruption to a minimum. 

Meet the team.

Shaun Whittle has worked here over 10 years now and is the one that you may well have noticed has lost almost 7 stone over the last year. He has lost his hair in the process but I think that’s coincidence!
He enjoys golf, football and is an avid DJ around the clubs in Bournemouth.
I hope this report has given you a little insight in to some of or work and till next time, enjoy the weather and golf!!
Thank Paul