Course Update – Wednesday, 9 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, 9 January 2025
Welcome to the New Year, from all of us down at the maintenance facility, we hope everyone enjoyed the festive season.
On course lately, as you are well aware, we have finally had a decent break from the rainfall that impacted the course towards the back end of the year. The last downpour that brought the flood waters up certainly did take a toll on our irrigation system, with the main feed from our 5th Irrigation dam taking a blow, which unfortunately leaked out into the water ways. We have stopped the leak at this stage and are looking into ways to rectify the problem so we can top up the irrigation dam, and still access water from Moolabin Creek as our main watering source.
As far as the Golf Course is concerned, it has enjoyed this dry spell, and the staff have as well.
- Green speeds are hovering at 9 ¾ ft on the stimp, and are showing great signs of controlled growth with our regular nutrition applications.
- Clipping yields have been minimal on the Greens which is great at this time of year for a consistent putting surface. This means the Plant Growth Regulator applications are working efficiently. Controlling the clipping yield through the summer months is vital to green performance. We are still looking to dust weekly, which has seen a vast improvement in Green’s performance from 12 months ago.
- You may have noticed a few spots on greens and collars that have discoloured in recent weeks, this is due to some spot treatments to eradicate some blue couch, and weeds that are scattered through the greens. Results so far have been positive and we have also applied some extra nutrition to some weaker areas on Greens to boost our coverage.
- Tees and Fairways are shaping up really nicely, they’ve got some great colour and we have been able to control the growth on them, despite how wet they were for a long period in December. Some minor changes to shapes around cart paths and green surrounds have been done to ensure maximum growth before we head back into the cooler months.
- We are in the process of applying Gypsum to the fairways, this will help improve soil structure, break down some of that clay profile that we sit on, decrease acidity in the soil as well as improve our salinity content. The large white ‘prill’ will break down after irrigation, and a couple of mows.
- There have been a few applications of herbicide to target some weed and foreign grass in among the Fairways and Roughs in the last month, which will show some discolouration. At this stage we are seeing good results, and with the recovery rate of the fairways, we should see the couch grass (wintergreen) grow back and fill these areas nicely.
- Bunkers have been receiving more attention now that the rain has given us a chance, they are still getting regularly detailed, edges cut and weeds pulled. We are still in the process of attacking poorly drained bunkers, and we look to find catch basins that will allow us to investigate further. The Fairway Bunker on hole 16 is overdue for attention, and we are still in the process of finding its drainage outlet so we can rectify the pond that it has turned into.
- We weren’t able to get a lot of landscape spraying done for weeds in the month of December due to the incessant rainfall, but we have picked up it back up, and hope to stay on top of it when weather permits.
- In the next week, we will be verti-cutting Tees and Surrounds to keep on top of our thatch, and help aerate those playing surfaces. This will be fairly minimal, and we look to mow off right after verti-cutting which will mean that it shouldn’t impact golf. We will then follow up with a pre-emergent herbicide application to ensure we get on top of any weed seed germination that will be occurring in the coming months.
- More applications to the rough will go ahead, which has seen great results thus far. Areas that we have targeted have gotten much cleaner (less foreign grass & weed species) which is easier to maintain and presents much better.
- Photo’s provided are snapshots of some work from the 7th hole, spot treatments on Greens to target Queensland Blue Couch, some discolouration of foreign grasses and weeds in fairways and our recent rain events and damages caused.
Water levels rose in December on Hole 6.
Water levels on Hole 4 also rose up to the 17th fairway.
Spot treatments have been conducted to eradicate blue couch in the greens.
Gypsum has been applied to the fairways.
Work on bunker drainage continues.
A cracked concrete pipe between the pump shed and Hole 5 dam has resulted in water levels dropping in that dam.
Green speeds are hovering at 9 ¾ ft on the stimp.
