COURSE NEWS 2nd MARCH
Greens Treated
Although the weather is definitely on an upswing we had 8.5 mm of rain last week, mainly in two heavy localised sessions,, enough to make the ground too soft for heavier machines and take us back to carry only. Fortunately growth is still very low, so being unable to mow has not been a problem. We are now into what looks to be an extended (?) dry period with some warmer daytime temperatures - Spring is imminent!
Early in the week the greens were treated with lawn sand. The active components are soluble salts of iron and nitrogen, which attacks the moss (it goes black) and gives the grass a fillip. This coming week greens will be hollow-tined: Gavin has hired in a core collector to speed the job up. It will be followed up with a heavy dressing which will be brushed in. The dry spell is welcome for this, although ideally we could do with some rain at the end of the week to wash the dressing down into the tine holes - but the weather controls us, not the other way round. The session will end with verti-cutting - a very light scarification to strip dead grass and other organic matter out of the greens surface. If we don’t remove it it works its way down into the green and ends up as ’thatch’ which interferes with drainage and softens the surface - and encourages disease. Prevention is infinitely better than cure.
Routine work has included completing path edging, whilst Gavin has finished servicing all the machines. The last task has been to replace the bearings on the rough mower. These are worked so hard they tend to fuse onto their shafts and literally have to be cut off with an edge grinder - a tedious job.
The Board has now approved our minor course capital requests, so Gavin is on the hunt for a replacement electric hand mower, a replacement trailer (to transport the mower, amongst other duties), and a (second-hand) road vehicle to fetch and carry items, including petrol for the bunker rake and various engineering bits and pieces. Previously we relied on the staff using their cars, which is not ideal and very possibly against the regulations regarding transporting petrol.
Course Committee
Early in the week the greens were treated with lawn sand. The active components are soluble salts of iron and nitrogen, which attacks the moss (it goes black) and gives the grass a fillip. This coming week greens will be hollow-tined: Gavin has hired in a core collector to speed the job up. It will be followed up with a heavy dressing which will be brushed in. The dry spell is welcome for this, although ideally we could do with some rain at the end of the week to wash the dressing down into the tine holes - but the weather controls us, not the other way round. The session will end with verti-cutting - a very light scarification to strip dead grass and other organic matter out of the greens surface. If we don’t remove it it works its way down into the green and ends up as ’thatch’ which interferes with drainage and softens the surface - and encourages disease. Prevention is infinitely better than cure.
Routine work has included completing path edging, whilst Gavin has finished servicing all the machines. The last task has been to replace the bearings on the rough mower. These are worked so hard they tend to fuse onto their shafts and literally have to be cut off with an edge grinder - a tedious job.
The Board has now approved our minor course capital requests, so Gavin is on the hunt for a replacement electric hand mower, a replacement trailer (to transport the mower, amongst other duties), and a (second-hand) road vehicle to fetch and carry items, including petrol for the bunker rake and various engineering bits and pieces. Previously we relied on the staff using their cars, which is not ideal and very possibly against the regulations regarding transporting petrol.
Course Committee