Friday 17th August

Course Update

Hi there,

I hope you have all enjoyed the last few weeks since my last blog. I have had a little break to Tenerife which was a  little warm but nice to relax. Whilst I was away, back here at Broadstone we have had a couple of inches of rain which has changed the look of the course. Fairways have began to green up and grow strongly but as you may have noticed the greens have also thickened up due to natural rain water having Nitrogen in it. We are currently working with verti-cut units and brushes to help speed the greens up.

We are currently hand mowing (4mm height of cut) as often as possible due to the saving of man hours from the recent dry spell. I try and use the hand mowers as often as possible due to them causing less compaction to the greens and the presentation factor is second to none.






Coping with this unusually hot summer.

You will all be aware that we all have had a very hard/hot summer and now you are hopefully seeing a return of a little green in your gardens. Having played a few courses recently and spoke to many course managers. some are finding out how easy it is to lose large areas on your greens, fairways or tees. Many clubs have suffered loss of grass coverage from the heat and will have to spend a lot of money on grass seed. 

A lot of the issues from the warm weather have been to fairways due to lack of water. With a lot of our competitors using excessive fertiliser applications and then needing high water applications, whilst this can create lush green fairways, the course grasses that appear through over feeding and watering do not survive very well in drought. At Broadstone, fortunately, we do not fertilise fairways, (we do use a seaweed product for health) as our aim is to have fine heathland grasses that literally look after themselves. (Bent/Fescue). I hope you have all seen how well our fairways have stood up to this spell of hot weather. To help us, we have had the 8000 litre bowser out most mornings doing up to 10 loads and this has been a great tool and I have to give credit to Keith for his excellent skills.  Below is a picture of Keith and his tractor

With the opens almost over it takes me now on to our maintenance week. Just a brief outline on what we will be doing throughout next week weather permitting.

Greens/Collars - 

Remove cores from all greens with 8.3 mm hollow tines. We remove cores to relieve compaction, help keep on top of thatch level, release air and it also allows locked up food in the soil profile to feed the plant. There are many great benefits but I don't want to bore you all

Remove cores and take them to Compost heap,

Top Dress green with a 70/30 fendress.

Overseed with Arrowtown Browntop Bent seed. We seed on to the dressing as it only needs to be sown in to the ground at no more than 5mm

Brush in with rubber drag matt

Tees - 

Remove cores from all tees with 8.3 mm hollow tines

Remove cores and take them to Compost heap,

Overseed with a fescue seed mix before dressing as the seed need to be sown deeper than bent.

Top dress with a 50/50 Fenn dress 

Brush in with rubber drag matt

Approaches will only be solid tined and top dressed with a 80/20 fenndress. We will seed the approaches where needed.

The 70/30 or 80/20 in the dressing means  80% sand and 20% Fenn soil . A lot of courses dress with sand but with our greens program we are on a 70/30 mix which creates ideal conditions for bent to thrive.

Any questions you ever have, feel free to ask me in person or go through Ed.

Thanks for reading.

P.S The football season is underway, Southampton for the champions League,

Friday 20 July

Course Update

Hello, I would like to start by saying thank you from me and the guys for all the positive comments from the Ladies and Men's Club Championships. Great wins by Louise and Harvey. It means a lot and keeps moral up in the team. Its a hard time at the moment trying to keep presentation an up when the grass isn't growing!

7th burning off lovely 

The course held up very well last weekend with the very hot weather and the amount of golf played. The greens had been hand mown since Wednesday to help with presentation and quality of cut and the roller was out as well to help with smoothness and a little extra pace. Rolling is not something I want to do at Broadstone too often and many of you out late on Sunday will have seen how close the greens can get to being on the edge after 3 or 4 days of extra stress. I watched a video of Harvey putting on 17 in his playoff and could not believe how stressed they looked.

After the Club Champs, we have raised the height of cut very marginally due to the high stress levels over the course and this may produce slightly slower surfaces but for me this is something we need to do to get our course through this unusually hot summer. 

I have been asked by a number of people why I am not watering many different places on the golf course from  approaches to fairways and even bunkers.

My easy answer is 'I do' I water every night at the moment. We have 4 fairways with part irrigation on which I do use, but we have to balance this with ensuring that the ball reacts in a very similar way when pitching on any a fairway. I regularly speak to course managers around the area and some have wall to wall irrigation on their courses. They began in June pumping lots of water out on their fairways to keep them lush and green, but by the end of June they have all given up as the weather has beaten them plus some have used all their water allowance up and now have had to spend £1000's on mains water, not ideal!

17th from the green

I love the picture above, from the freshly painted hole to the dry brown but well presented fairway. 

The course is beginning to look like the wonderful heathland golf course that it should be and deservedly sits amongst the top courses around. This dry weather is benefiting our roughs and fairways and bringing back the grasses that can survive this weather. Grasses that do not take as much maintenance and can fend for themselves.

Can I just remind everyone to repair their pitch marks and rake foot prints out of the bunker after playing a shot. Also when smoking be so careful as there has been many fires recently. The par 3 course next to Hayling Island GC had a fire started by a cigarette butt. 

https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/fire-rips-through-the-rough-at-beachlands-golf-course-on-hayling-island-1-8572407

Have a great few weeks of golfing.

King Regards

Paul

Course Update

22/06/2018

Just to begin, I would like to say to all that attended the Q & A at the club, thank you for coming and I hope that you learnt a lot about the grass species change that we are going through at Broadstone. Gordon's presentation was excellent and just highlights why we need to head in the direction that we are heading.

I hope you are enjoying this beautiful weather that we are having at the moment, looking at the forecast, we will not be getting any rain for the foreseeable future. I can't quite believe that only two months ago it was snowing and now I am moaning about needing to water!

If you see me or any of my staff out on the course dancing away, it's not that we are losing the plot, we are doing a rain dance!! The last drop of rain for us was on June 1st (1mm) and whilst I hear you saying 'he's got an irrigation system to do that', yes we have, but there is nothing better than natural rainfall.

When it comes to monitoring the greens, we have a couple of toys that we use to achieve the correct moisture levels in the greens. If you were at the Q & A with Gordon, you will remember that the bent grasses that we are sowing into our greens do not need as much water as poa, due to being a better grass species and the deeper rooting system that it has. We have a moisture meter that we go around the greens checking levels of moisture in the soil profile as well as a soil thermometer which is more used for the start or end of the season so we know when the soil temps are coming up for seeding or just to know when the grass is going to begin moving. Unfortunately, I can't give it any paracetamol if it gets too hot!!

The Moisture readings we are looking for in the greens is between 15 and 20% moisture and the optimum soil temperatures for grass growth is around 8 degrees celsius.

Irrigation.

I know I briefly mentioned irrigation last month but as the water isn't falling I thought would add a little more. We have automatic irrigation on all Greens, Approaches, Tees and most surrounds of greens. We also have a few areas on fairways. All irrigation programs are set up from a computer in my office which I can also log into from home if needed, if the weather changes. We also have a handheld remote that can turn on the sprinkler heads out on the course, which we use when testing or watering in a product that we have applied. To the left is a picture showing a full program set up on the course. If I was to run this it would take 6 hours and would be impossible to do so as it would dry our water reservoir out. Most nights the greens are on and the other areas are done when needed. I could go into the wetting agents I use to retain the moisture but don't want to bore you all today!! Maybe next time.

I feel the course is beginning to get that real heathland look with the fairways beginning to brown off, approaches bouncing and the rough coming up. The rough is quite penal out there in certain places and we are  trying to get on top of it, next week will see more areas tackled as hopefully some others lose their thickness in this heat.

As I have said before we love to hear your feedback, good or bad about things you like and things you don't, so feel free to pop up and see us on the course or email Ed. We have many eyes out there but things can change very quickly, I try to play as often as I can out there to see it from the golfers point of view and I encourage the staff to do the same. We have 5 of 8 that play golf now and learning through playing the course is an excellent tool as a greenkeeper.

Bring your dog to work day

Just thought I would put a pic of my dog in this month, especially as its bring your dog to work day. She sometimes comes in for a look/sniff around in the mornings. She is a rare dog in the UK and there are only 71 at present. Her breed is a Black and Tan Coonhound and are used for tracking cold scents from days and even weeks ago.

Thank you again for reading and remember to keep on the fairway and out of the rough!

Kind regards 

Paul

   

Course update

18/05/2018

Hello, Its been a while and how things have changed!!

I started last time talking about the amount of rain we have been having. Well, we haven't seen a drop for a long time and I shouldn't say this but it would be nice to see a bit of rain!!

My staff and I are very happy with where we are with the course and surfaces are beginning to take shape. It is a great time to see the bent that we are introducing to the greens as the poa is a little behind the bent grasses, because of the low soil temperatures. I know it is always a saying at Broadstone that the greens aren't there till June but I hope you can see from a few of the predominantly bent greens (5,13 & 14) that we can change this theory and have these wonderful greens for most, if not all year round. This will occur once the conversion is completed across some of the more poa dominant greens such as 1,3 & 10. This difference in conversion speeds between the drier greens that get more light and air and the wetter, shadier ones that don't, is perfectly normal on this program, they will catch up, we just need to keep doing what we are doing and be patient. 

Rough

 The dreaded rough has started seeding and is really bringing definition to the course and I have started to add an extra couple of cuts at 5 inches where I feel the course needs it. At present the base of the rough in most places is not thick and is playable, obviously not an easy shot (as you shouldn't really be there!) but still thin enough that you can find your ball and swing a club through. 

Bunkers

The bunkers are an ongoing gripe here and at a lot of other courses. We have long term plans to refurbish all the bunkers but this doesn't stop us looking for short term solutions to the worst bunkers. As I said in a previous blog, we have acquired a beach cleaner from the Bournemouth council and have been waiting for some dry weather to have a go with it. You may have noticed or seen us out in a few bunkers on the 8th and 9th, starting to try and address the stone issues. The bunker sand has to be bone dry, including the bases, for the machine to work but when it is, it works like a dream. We have cleaned a handful of bunkers so far and whilst it will  not remove all of the stones, it will definitely help us in the bad state that the bunkers are in.

Please watch this little video clip of Sam and the machine in action.

If video does not work please try this link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pI4cy8j2mY

Watering the course

I thought I could briefly explain about how we irrigate the course.

You probably never see the irrigation doing a full cycle around the course. It is on most nights during the early hours of the morning at the moment and we are not watering everything, just watering what needs to be to keep surfaces healthy and moisture levels at the optimum number.

The system is there predominantly to keep the grass alive as overwatering can also be a problem to the greens and can encourage the wrong grasses or thatch which are caused due to too much moisture in the ground.

TPC Sawgrass - Must watch video!

Those who like watching the golf on Sky, will have seen a great Players Championship last weekend at Sawgrass. I just thought I would add a link to a video of the course set up from the green keeping team and volunteers. Wouldn't I just love this amount of staff and machinery and it just shows how much work goes into a tournament at that level......and it's not even a major!! Please remember this video next time you compare a course you are playing to the one you see on TV.

Please click here for link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gtembwn2TpY

I would also like to thank all the people that have made time to email in with their thoughts on the course, mostly positive, but also some giving feedback about areas they wish to see improved. I like members to give both sides of feedback, as we cannot achieve everything and have to prioritize our workload and your feedback helps us do this. Also, all the positive feedback we receive, I pass on to all my staff which definitely spurs them on to make the course even better everyday.

Finally, Ed has emailed you about the divot party on Tuesday 22nd May at 6pm and the team would love some of you to come. I have 7 of the staff that are coming in to help which will be a great time for you all to meet the lads.

Kind Regards

 Paul

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.