Ground Directors Report

GROUND REPORT

Due to the poor weather and holidays, the next Ground Meeting will be held late Feb/early March.

This is a brief report to bring everyone up-to-date with activities:

Following the thaw, ground conditions have been quite good and the greens have come through the snow and ice, unscathed.

Whenever we are frost-free it should be possible to use all the greens with the possible exception of the fourth and eighteenth.

These two greens are now the only ones which fail to drain adequately following rain. If funds were available I would recommend that we investigate some of the commercially available procedures which are available to deal with poorly draining green. In particular, there is one where 50mm holes are drilled into the green at one metre centres, i.e. about 500 on an average green. These can go down to a depth of 5 metres, so that they reach more permeable strata which will take away the water. The holes are back-filled a porous aggregate which keeps the holes open. Although I’m fully aware that there’s no money for this right now, Gary and I are going to see a demo next week at Walmersley, near Bury to check it out.

The new paths on the 8th and 15th and the renovations to the one on the 14th seem to be finding favour with members. We will see how they perform over the summer and then decide whether we use the same material to improve other areas.

The left hand bunker by the 8th green has been repositioned. This has been done because the banking beyond the original one was too steep to be cut safely as a machine could easily slide into the bunker in damp conditions. The new bunker is closer to the tee, but should be a bit easier to play out of.

We hope to carry a couple of small drainage projects next month after that efforts will be concentrated on generally tidying up and getting the course ready for the season.

Machine repair bills are high this year. This is because many of our machines are well past their sell-by-date. I’m fairly confident that we will get through the coming year without major problems but at some point we will have to replace some key items.

I’ve appended a month-by-month schedule of the work that the ground staff carry out. Some Directors will have seen this before but with more will not have. It’s not something followed slavishly because the weather determines when a lot of the tasks are appropriate.

Yearly Work Programme

March

• Cut grass as required
• Make good areas damaged over winter
• Lay new turf if required
• Pencil tine greens
• Apply lawn sand/fertiliser to greens if weather is suitable
• Cut fairways and rough as required

April

• Bring in winter tee mats
• Bring roped off areas back into play
• Lower cut for greens to 5mm
• Start regular cutting of fairways and rough
• Edge bunkers & top up with new sand
• Fertilise greens with 4.0.4 or similar
• Top dress greens with sand
• Repaint tee markers and yardage markers

May

Fertilise greens with 4.0.4

Start regular grass cutting and maintenance programme:

• Lower cut for greens to 4mm
• Cut fringes to 15mm
• Cut surrounds to 25mm
• Cut fairways to 15mm
• Cut tees to 15mm
• Top dress greens with sand twice and vibro roll
• Fill divots on tees and fairways
• Strim or deck-cut unmown areas
• Sarel roll or star tine or pencil tine greens weekly
• Apply wetting agent to greens
• Spray weeds on greens’ surrounds with selective weedkiller
• Add red shale to paths as required
• Grease all machinery

June

• Continue regular grass cutting and maintenance programme as in May
• Feed greens with liquid fertiliser
• Spray tree surrounds with Roundup
• Spray Himalayan Balsam and Japanese Knotweed
• Re-edge bunkers
• Apply wetting agent to greens and hand water dry areas as required
• Fertilise tees
• Continue divotting programme
• Grease all machinery

July

• Continue regular grass cutting and maintenance programme as in May
• Apply wetting agent to greens and hand water dry areas as required
• Continue divotting programme
• Pencil tine tees and apply wetting agent
• Grease all machinery

August

• Continue regular grass cutting and maintenance programme as in May
• Apply wetting agent to greens and hand water dry areas as required
• Continue divotting programme
• Vertidrain/solid tine greens, overseed and top dress with sand
• Begin preparing winter greens with top dressing
• Grease all machinery

September

• Continue regular grass cutting and maintenance programme as in May
• Raise cut on greens to 5mm
• Cut winter greens
• Scarify,hollow tine, overseed and top dress greens
• Edge bunkers
• Apply autumn fertiliser
• Grease all machinery

October

• Continue grass cutting at reduced frequency
• Raise cut on greens to 6mm as weather dictates
• Spray greens to prevent fusarium
• Slit tine greens

Start winter work schedule

• making good areas of damage
• checking and rodding field drains
• vertidraining compacted areas
• Identify and treat wet and boggy areas
• Start special winter projects e.g. laying new paths, constructing tees etc
• Start servicing machinery

November

• Cut grass as required
• Slit tine greens
• Vertidrain tees
• Bring out winter tee mats
• Rope off vulnerable areas
• Clear and collect leaves
• Continue winter work schedule as October and winter projects programme
• Continue servicing machinery

December

• Cut grass as required
• Slit tine greens and tees
• Continue winter work schedule as November and winter projects programme
• Continue servicing machinery
• Continue clearing and collecting leaves

January

• Cut grass as required
• Continue winter work schedule as December and winter projects programme
• Continue servicing machinery
• Start work on trees – pruning, felling, removing stumps

February

• Cut grass as required
• Continue winter work schedule as January and winter projects programme
• Continue servicing machinery
• Solid tine and/or veritdrain greens
• Make good areas damaged over winter
• Lay new turf if required

 

Please click on the links below to view prevoius Ground Directors Reports:

• November 2009
• December 2009

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