Course Update

5/4/18

The weather!!

What can I say!!

30mm in 2 days to start this month and more since. I am wondering when it is going to stop and give the course, our gardens and especially the green staff, a rest.

As mentioned previously, the problem is not just the water but also the lack of grass growth on the course. I hear you saying the temperatures are rising which is true, and we are seeing light at the end of the tunnel, but the saturated ground conditions are suffocating the grass plant. Fortunately, we have aerated the Greens, Approaches and Tees recently, with more planned tomorrow, which is helping the water get through the soil profile.

There are a few practices that I have wanted to do over the last few weeks to help smoothness of the greens including top dressing and some light feed, but we simply haven’ t had the conditions to do this without causing damage and further stress on the plant.

You may notice a yellowing to some of the poa grass blades on the greens, this is due to a couple of reasons. 

1. We applied the first feed on 13^th March and was due to apply a follow up feed at the end of the month but have not been able to do so until today, due to heavy rain or strong wind. The problem is that the first application has been washed through the plant by now and the poa is in need of this feed to prevent is suffering from the stress of low growth and high saturation.
2. Poa needs the temperatures up and a managed feeding program to spring in to life and begin to grow. The bent however is tolerant to colder conditions and less nutrition. This is why you can see a darker healthier grass on the greens. this is predominantly bent.

The reasons above are just outlining are just some of the reasons why we are changing the grasses over to bent and getting away from poa. The complex thing for us to achieve is getting the balance right during this transition phase and hopefully getting them to sit comfortably alongside each other for a while.

I was hoping to get the course set up for summer golf and move you on to the summer tees over the next week or so, but with the lack of growth and wet weather we are experiencing I am holding back for a while longer.

We will instead look to move you on to summer tees gradually depending on grass conditions on the individual tee, how much wear that tee will end up getting across the year and conditions around the tee.

Finally, I have to say though, I am very happy with the way the course has held up with the weather and would like to thank you all for your co-operation when we have to take trolleys and buggies off. I only do this if I feel they will be a detriment to the course or will be unsafe for you to use.

Enjoy the Masters this weekend, but don’t forget, once they have finished their little one week showpiece, Augusta looks like this in the summer:

Kind Regards,

 

Paul Staples

Course Update

16/03/2018

Hi everyone, I would love to be saying the summer is coming but the snow over the weekend has been a greenkeepers nightmare. Ever since I've been in this industry I have never seen a March like this, all I can say is I'm happy we got all the winter protects completed and they are bedding in nicely.

3rd Green On Sunday Morning

The cold wet weather we have all seen over the past few months has held the growing season back. Speaking to colleagues within the industry, we are all suffering the same fate and some data from a well respected agronomist, suggests we are at least 3 to 4 weeks behind schedule. Soil temperature at this time of year are usually rising to 7/8 degrees but at present we are still at around 2 degrees. Grass usually kicks in to life at around 8 degrees, so we are still some way off. This is not just us, courses further north are even further behind, lets be thankful we live this far south!

You will see us out cutting on a regular basis, This is mainly to keep presentation up together and to define all areas of play. I have had the hand mowers out on the greens and tees throughout the winter and hope to carry this on in to the summer as often as I can.

Heights of Cut on the course at the moment are -

Greens - 5.5 mm (Cut By Hand Mower)
Tees - 12 mm (Cut By Hand Mower)
Approaches - 12 mm
Fairways - 17 mm
Semi - 2 inches
High Rough - 5 inches


As you may be aware we have been carrying out some spiking. The Tees and Approaches have had inch tine holes at 12 inches in the ground, This is excellent for the turf and will let it breath from our wet winter.


Looking ahead to this week I will be spiking the greens with pencil tines ( 8.3 mm) at 10 inch depth, The greens will be hand mown after and this procedure should have very little, if any impact on your round of golf. I will also be top dressing all areas of the course this week depending on weather conditions but again I will do my best not to affect your golf.

Last but not least, Please can you remember to replace your divots and repair your pitch marks. It is a massive help to the greenstaff and helps your course recover after a hard day of golfers.

Kind Regards

Paul

Course Update

6th March 2018 

I started writing this blog in my lounge watching the snow come down and finished it when it all disappeared very quickly in the last 24 hours.

Cold Weather

Since my last blog temperatures have dropped. The greens have been frozen for a couple of weeks and now they have a blanket of snow over them. Amazing to look at but a pain in the neck for us clearing up!!


Now the snow has lifted, the ground underneath is saturated and frozen in places The forecast is for further rain and the temperatures rising which could mean very wet ground. All I can promise you is that all the Greenstaff will work their hardest to get the course back fully open without restrictions as quickly as ground conditions allow.

 12th Bunker

I hope you have all had a chance to see the work on the 12th Bunker. The weather was perfect for the construction and everything went to plan. All my greenstaff did a great job and I feel we are starting to have a great team at Broadstone. It was my first big job working with Matt, my new Deputy, things ran well and Matt worked with our 2 apprentices closely and did an excellent job mentoring them through a big project.

All the new turf including the heather will need to have time to root and bed in, so I hope you will all be happy to help and use the drop zones provided.

The sand is the same type we have used in the chipping green bunkers for the past few weeks. The feedback we had was excellent and all staff that play golf (including the Pros) love it.

I hope to open the bunker for the start of April.

18th Steps

These steps have bugged me for years -

• They looked unsightly.
• They were rotting.
• It is the last impression leaving the golf course which I didn't like.
• They weren't wide enough to spread wear

The new steps are made from Oak sleepers The heather has been bought up to the edges to finish them off. I feel they will leave a great impression in peoples minds as they leave such a wonderful golf course.

Other Winter Projects

Just a quick round up of the other work we have completed:
 

• Bridges - All bridges on 1st, 2nd, 3rd & 4th have now been replaced, this has been a time consuming but successful job and we are pleased with the finish.
• Tree/scrub work at 11th - This is nearly complete and has received very positive feedback from the members.
• Tree thinning at 16th - This is nearly complete, with just a few unhealthy trees to be removed and a tidy up job to complete.
• Scrub clearance right of 7th - This starts this week, we will need to close the hole at times to allow this to take place safely
• 5th/6th Tess - The turf is bedding in well and will be fed and dressed over the coming weeks. We hope to have both tees available for use by early April.

Thankyou for reading my blog and as the greens will be soft/receptive over the coming week, please repair as many pitchmarks as you can, including your own

Kind Regards, Paul. 

Course update 01/02/2018

Course Update 01/02/2018

The sun has finally come out today but for how long!!

January is over now with 98 mm (4 inches) of rain falling. It is exactly the same amount as January 2017.

The course is wet and I appreciate all of you who are carrying your bags.

I hope you are all enjoying the look of the tees and greens at present, I am trying to continue with the hand mowing through the spring and as far into the summer as man power will allow.

Disease

We are currently in high disease pressure and you may see disease scars on the greens. We are up together with chemical application and all disease is under control. The warm temperatures and damp days are the perfect concoction for disease and after speaking to other Course Managers around the area, we are all in the same boat.

The soil temperatures are up at present which is helping early grass growth. This will help with the Fusarium scar growth and help greens strengthen up going in to the spring/summer.

This type of weather and occasional Fusarium outbreak does highlight to us how much all golf courses will be affected by the removal of key fungicides this year. Along with the removal over recent years of key pesticides used to control chafer grubs, leatherjackets and worms, the golf course is much more susceptible to these issues. We are doing all we can to protect ourselves, having the right grasses on greens, staying up to date with any available products that may help and adopting a more sustainable approach will all help but wont make us immune.  

Winter Works

The two tees that we have built are bedding in very nicely and are beginning to grow. If at anytime the tee looks a little brown, it will only be top dressing which is helping level any little depressions.

The tree work between 1 & 18 just needs a clean through and a few branches lifting which should be happening over the next week.

11th green works have gone very well, I feel this is a massive improvement to a great hole. The flail that was used to finish the work has done a great job and like between 1 & 18 we will have to have a run through next week to tidy up.

We are 9 bridges down and 2 to go. As you may or may not be aware we have replaced all the sleepers on each bridge on the 1st & 2nd hole and we still have 3rd & 4th to do. We have added artificial grass to each and will be painting the RSJ's when we have a few dry days forecast.

Bunker Maintenance  

We are currently working through the bunkers edging, weeding and moving sand around. We will add sand where needed once this rain eases off.

The main hole you will see a difference is 15th as we have raised the faces and changed the shapes a little. I feel this will not affect your golf but change the slightly bland look of these bunkers. There are many to work on out on the course but some need a lot more work than a spade.

12th Bunker Rebuild Project

We are starting the project on Tuesday and hope to have it completely finished by the end of play on Friday 16th, weather permitting!

We will be completely re-doing the bunker from shape to position and surrounding area. The drainage will also be completed as this has been one of the big problems from the existing bunker.

I will be working with our consultant Gordon Irvine and one of the top golf course shapers in Europe, Conor Walsh. Conor has worked at many courses including St Andrews and Gleneagles and we are very fortunate to have his services for this work.

I feel that we will produce a great bunker that will put Broadstone back on the correct path again with our bunker update.

Finally

Due to the recent wet weather I am constantly getting told from the greens staff who are on golf course set up duty in the morning, about the shocking state of the pitchmarks. Please help us by remembering to repair your pitch marks, replace your divots and not walk too close to the greens and tees with your trolleys. If you could do this it will help us and help your course.

Many thanks for reading.

Paul

Course Update 02/01/2018

Course Update 02/01/2018

Apologies for the delay since my last update, but I have been busy with the two tees on the 5th & 6th, tree work on the 1st, building new bridges, gorse clearance and employing a new Deputy. I very much hope you have had a good festive period and like me, are looking forward to a successful 2018.

Just thought I would start with a quick re-cap of 2017.

I took over temporarily in March and handed the reins for a few months while the Head Greenkeeper's position was advertised. Having applied, and then going through a thorough interview process along with other candidates, I was delighted to be appointed to the role. 

I have added three new faces to our team this year, including my new Deputy Matt who has come from Remedy Oak and has previously worked at Wentworth and Ferndown. He started today and is keen to help the rest of the team and I, to continue to raise the bar in terms of course presentation.

With the course, we have many ideas that I would like to achieve, which will all take time but you may have seen a few through the year from run offs to improved fairway surfaces to different cutting lines. I was very pleased with the surfaces during the summer and feel the greens are in the best condition I have  seen them in for years. My main enjoyment from this year has been the fairway conditions, as I have said in one of my previous blogs, we have changed the maintenance practices to the fairways which they have never had before and have benefited from greatly. I am also pleased  that the Committee have supported my plans for grass boxes to be added to our fairway mower. This means we can collect the grass clippings and not just leave them on the fairway to rot down and cause problems. Removing the grass clipping will also help tidy up the fairways visually but will help with thatch, drainage and bringing back the finer grasses to them.

The staff and I have enjoyed the positive and appreciative comments coming from members and visitors, it goes a long way to boosting staff morale so thank you to those who take the time to do this. We are also pleased that some visits this July by a number of review panellists have seen us climb a number of places in all lists and whilst much much more remains to be done, It does help show just what a great course we have and how we are on the right path with it.

NEW TEE BUILDS

As you will all have seen the tees we have built have gone well. There are some finishing jobs to be completed but we are 90% of the way there now.

5th

I am very happy with the way the new tee has blended in with the existing teeing platforms. It may not be the biggest of tees but it fits in well and gives us that extra teeing ground we need in the winter months. The fescue/Bent turf purchased in that we have used for the teeing ground is of excellent quality and will bed in lovely in the coming months. Another interesting point of note is the turf around the tee, (and also the end of the path) has been harvested from the practice ground where we have found some beautiful grasses where we apply no fertiliser at all. 

6th

I am also very happy with the way this tee has gone. A slightly bigger project than the 5th but everyone likes a challenge! I was asked several times, 'why have you removed all of the turf and not just added to the existing tee?

• The new turf would not match the existing turf. (grass species)
• The levels in the existing tee weren't good enough.
• The old tee turf had had to much wear from a busy summer.

We are currently installing an oak sleeper edge along the tee which will have a path material up to it. As you will have seen in a recent email from Ed, the options for the whole of this path are currently being assessed.  

WET WEATHER

With the weather that we have been having over the past week you will be aware that we have had trolley and green restrictions in place. We do try our best to keep these to a minimum but we feel it will benefit the course in the long run as we will avoid major damage and avoid high traffic areas becoming slippery and unsafe. Once a dry 24 hours comes along, I will get the course back fully open as soon as I can.

Its not looking to good for the rest of this week with the rain and then getting colder for the weekend. but hopefully we will have some respite soon. Please keep your fingers crossed!

NOT LONG TILL THE SUMMER

Just thought I would add a pic to cheer you all up and remind you what the course looks like in the summer!!

Many thanks for reading and may I wish you a great golfing 2018, from me and all the Green Staff.

Course Update 10/11/2017

Course Update 10/11/2017

When is the winter arriving? I thought it had arrived on Wednesday as it was -1 degrees on my way into work, Then today we are back to double figures!

I thought to start I would let you know where we are at with our winter heights of cut.

• Greens - 5mm
• Tees - 12 mm
• Approaches - 12 mm
• Fairways - 16 mm
• Semi Rough - 1.75 inches
• High Rough - 5 inches
• Winter Greens - 10 mm (This winter we are trying to give these some extra TLC than in previous years)

Winter Projects

The grass growth is slowing now which is giving us a chance to begin our winter projects. You may have seen we have so far replaced 4 bridges along first brook with new RSJ's and sleepers. 

I will be putting a gripper on the sleepers to stop any of you slipping.

You will have seen the new 5th tee that I feel has blended in really nicely and the widening of 6th tee beginning. By the end of next week both tees will be ready for irrigation to be installed. After the irrigation, the tees will then be laser levelled by a machine to give us a perfectly level tee apart from a slight fall of 1cm in 200cms front to back to aid drainage. This should hopefully then be ready to turf by the 1st week of December.

I feel the golf course is holding up well going into the winter with the playing surfaces in a better place than they usually are in November. This weather may be nice for you guys but it's a recipe for disease for us greenkeepers with the warmth and moisture in the air not a good recipe for all of us looking after golf courses. We have applied 3 Fungicides so far with a preventative product applied 2 weeks ago which will be keeping the greens and collars clean of .disease. Due to cost we do not apply fungicides to tees and approaches but we have used iron which dry's the plant out and hardens up the cell walls.

Apart form high disease pressure, the only other concern for me is the 2nd fairway. With the amount of rain we have had since July, the water table is very high and it doesn't take many damp days for this fairway to become muddy. We are going to do whatever we can to improve this situation with next weeks dry forecast hopefully allowing us to do some extra aeration, which will hopefully improve the situation and mean we don't have to rope off some of the worst areas. I have to say though, aside from this fairway, the rest of the course is actually pleasingly dry, helped by the aeration work we carry our regularly through the rest of the year.

Not too much to say about the leaves. They just keep falling!! We spend an unbelievable amount of hours tidying up the leaves, we hope to keep as many as possible away from playing surfaces to aid your enjoyment of the course.

The Temporary greens have gone in well and its nice to here some of your positive feedback on them. Can you all just remember to lift and drop from them as divots are not nice to putt over. They are clearly marked with white lines.

Lots of people have said that they do not like all the posts and ropes out on the course. I understand that they are unsightly in certain places but they do help us spread direction of golf. You will see that we have purchased some green and white posts that are on 5th slope up to the second part of the fairway. I am going to see how these work for a few weeks then possibly introduce them in to some other areas.

Many thanks for reading and please keep on top of your pitch marks and divots.

Course update 29/09/2017

Course update 29/09/2017

Hello from another damp, dull, overcast and wet day. Not sure how you all feel but I have had enough of the rain and the winter isn't even here yet.

Mornings are closing in now and Autumn is alive and kicking. The trees are starting to turn and leaves have started falling.  Over the years I have heard members saying 'why don't you let all the leaves drop and then pick them up' that would be amazing if we could but unfortunately the grass dies under the leaves plus the amount of leaves in the trees would result in a lot of lost balls on the course.

Seeding on the greens.

In my last update we had finished 14 greens and completed the last few last week. At no point during the seeding was it ideal conditions but we had to get the seed down before October which we did. The ground conditions ideally would be dry but this is England and we are never sure what weather we will get. Due to these conditions, the disruption is slightly more than we would like but it has been a successful operation. We were able to get one pass of Brown Top Bent on to the greens and are starting to see the results coming through. The seed will start to germinate after 2 weeks and then its managing it to let the seedlings become established in to the grass sward.

I would like to thank all members for their patience during this vital work. 

Disease

With the warm temperatures and moisture in the air, it is wonderful conditions for disease. I have spoken to many other Greenkeepers around and we are all in the same boat. On Monday morning the Facebook page that Greenkeepers use was rife with people moaning about disease. Fusarium patch is the most common this time of year and if present on the green it is treated with the chemical iprodione.  Iprodione is a chemical that is due to be banned in the not too distant future and this is one of the reasons we are moving over to predominantly bent greens as bent grass is more disease resistant.

I hear you say, why are we getting the disease now we have bent greens. We are working on having predominantly bent greens and are not yet there. Some greens are further into they process because of ground, light and generally ideal growing conditions.

I am currently in the process off recruiting a deputy to assist me in the running of the golf course. The position is currently being advertised and I hope to have someone in place by the end of November. As I have already stated, this will be a person from outside will not only assist in the day to day management of the course, but also bring fresh ideas of their own as well as giving me the cover I need so that I can visit other courses and network with fellow turf managers to help broaden my ideas.

After another inch of rain and forecasts predicting it not stopping, unfortunately conditions are getting to the point where we may need to restrict buggy use. We will try our hardest to keep them on and assessments will be made through the day for the later golfers.

Last but not at all least, can we please keep on top of Divots and pitch marks? The greenstaff will have a smile on there faces if they see us all working as a team!

Thank you for reading, have a good weekend.

Paul