Course Update – Wednesday, 22 January 2025
The following course update has been prepared by our Course Superintendent, Marcus Hartup and Assistant Course Superintendent, Alex Blakey. These will be published fortnightly in Member News and also on the Feed in our App.
Course Update – Wednesday, 22 January 2025
It looks to be a dry week ahead, and we could certainly use it.
- Exciting times ahead as Atlas Golf have begun their work on resurfacing holes 19, 20 and 21. So far, we have sprayed the greens twice with herbicide to eliminate the grass and roots that are being removed, and the top 200mm of profile has already been taken out of 19 Green. We will provide regular updates with the process, and encourage everyone to take a sneak peek as they walk by during their round. A friendly reminder that the holes are strictly no play zones as the work goes on, and as we grow in the new TifEagle Greens.
- 19 Green will be the first to stolonized, and we will look to do that on Tuesday the 28th of January. A solid turf collar will be planted, before stolonizing the rest of the greens. We will also provide a video of how the solid turf gets shredded into stolons and packed into bags before being sent our way.
- On course, the Greens are playing beautifully, and coverage is really good. Stimping at 10ft on a regular basis, and often getting just over 10ft after a Mow and a Roll.
- We will look to get back into our weekly topdressing routine after the Australia Day public holiday after our “ProPass” had a much-deserved holiday.
- Spot treating of weeds species has continued, and you can see the Crowsfoot start to die back on the Greens and Collars.
- Tees are growing steadily, and haven’t stepped back after a pre-emergent application last week. This should give us a good chance to control the weeds for the next 3 months, and we will look to tackle the remaining weeds with selective herbicides in the coming weeks.
- Fairways have all been treated with a pre-emergent as well, and we are seeing good clipping yields for this time of the year. We are continuing to cut Fairways once a week, as we seem to be on a 7-day rain cycle, giving them plenty of time to dry out before a cut. Staying on top of the growth is vital for this time of the year, as it can get away from you quickly! Our foliar program for the Fairways, much like our Tees and Greens consists of little amounts of nutrition, as often as possible. This ensures we get a consistent growth pattern and no big ups and downs
- As the works are going on the out of play holes, a friendly reminder to take care when playing holes 10, 11 & 12 as Atlas are traversing back and forwards to reach 19, 20 & 21. The ruts that are being left behind by the big dumpers are G.U.R and will be white dotted. These will be fixed up when they are off site and should grow back in no time.
- Bunkers are back in play following another rain event, and we will continue to try get the bunkers back into action as soon as we can. We have received an order of bunker sand which we will look to top up bunkers that are severely lacking good coverage with all the washouts.
- We are attempting to get multiple cuts on the rough every week, whenever it is dry enough to get our mowers out, and we continue to tackle the incessant weeds with a herbicide program. We will also add a pre-emergent application to the rough next week.
- Tree pruning is currently being undertaken to lift low lying branches that are affecting mowing capabilities, as well as providing unwanted shade in some high traffic areas.
- Our Air2g2 has been out in the past week, to give some much-needed aeration into the rootzone of our Greens, a process that takes around 2 days to get over all the course. We will look to try and do this monthly going forward. The process involves injecting 3 Probes, that are spaced 600mm apart, and inject high pressurised air 200mm into the rootzone. Great for alleviating compacted areas and pushing oxygen through the growing medium of our Greens after big rain events.
- Don’t forget to slip, slop, slap when out on course, as the daytime temperatures are rising.
These will be fixed when the contractors have finished and should grow back in no time.
The green resurfacing trial has started on Hole 19 – green excavation.
Sod cutting.
Removal of existing sand.
Green surveying to return the greens to existing levels.
Our Air2g2 has been out in the past week, to give some much-needed aeration into the rootzone of our Greens.
