Course Update – Wednesday, 19 March 2025
Lately at The Brisbane Golf Club, we have endured a little bit of rain fall believe it or not. Thanks to Cyclone Alfred, we managed to fill up the Moolabin Creek again, which was looking a little low! We copped roughly 475mm of rain during the week that Alfred blessed our shores, and only managed to lose a handful of trees on course, which was pleasing to see. Because of the nature of Alfred, and the fact the Brisbane River wasn’t quite as high as it could have been if water levels were being impacted more by tide and Dam releases, we managed to get by with pretty minimal damage and debris. The water levels rescinded very quickly, after we had almost 8 greens affected by the flood waters, and it was mostly clean (a few contaminants here and there) which was lucky. A huge thank you to our volunteers, who helped get us back in action so quickly with their debris cleanup on Wednesday last week. All in all, to have still been affected by flood waters on the Monday, to opening up for carts on Friday, we certainly faired quite well.
We did also utilise our Shed Evacuation plan, preparing for Cyclone Alfred, which saw us completely strip our Machinery and Tools out of the Maintenance Facility, as well as remove our Irrigation Pump Shed and Control Hubs. A worthwhile process when the weather gurus are expecting high flood levels, and a good exercise for the team to be a part of. The process of putting things back meant we were able to give areas a good tidy and do some housekeeping.
Greens 19, 20 & 21 have responded very well to being inundated with water for a week, which was to be expected. 20 & 21 were underwater for a good day or so, but once the creek level dropped, they dried out remarkably well and look to be thriving again in the sunshine. They received a cut at 4mm last week, before a heavy top-dress this week to help further improve coverage.
The Bunkers have taken the brunt of the storm, obviously with the wash-outs and the silt build up on the bunker bases. We are starting to address the bunkers and hope to have them back in play in the coming week. It is nice to see the bunkers on course that do have the Matrix system (instead of the Geofabric lining) have minimal damage in comparison, which saves the crew time on restoration.
Whilst we were back preparing the course after the rain, we utilised the opportunity to Verti-cut the Tees, which were getting quite thatch and after all the rain and growth it was as good a time as any to remove some thatch build up from them. They should bounce back fairly quickly after getting hit with some nutrition this week. We will also look to put another pre-emergent Herbicide application on the Tees in the next couple of weeks, after they have recovered.
Greens in play are still getting a regular weekly dusting, and after a week of not getting cut and excessive rain, they have bounced back really well and are measuring back at over 10ft on the Stimp. They still feel quite firm underfoot and we aren’t seeing a great spike in growth which just highlights that the conditioning of them heading into the wet week was good, setting up nicely for the cooler months to come.
Fairways and Roughs were obviously quite wet but due to the conditions leading up to the flood, the water table wasn’t at capacity, meaning once the water levels subsided, the surface water had somewhere to run off too. The 1st & 18th Rough drainage line is still an issue that we will try to amend come winter, as the drainage line running through the trees is full of tree roots and still full of water. Now that we have our Trenching Attachment (similar to the one that was used on the 3rd Fairway) we can use that to run some new drainage lines to get the water away after rainfall.
Out of play areas are no doubt jumping with weed growth following copious rain and a couple of weeks of inactivity, and we will jump back in these after we’ve got all of our playing surfaces back to their best. The flood waters also bring a lot of Fire Ant activity, which we advise everyone to look out for as they are traversing the course. We are going through the process of flagging and spraying nests when we can.
Thanks for all your patience over the last couple of weeks ensuring the crew and the club could prepare for Alfred with minimal interruptions, and for allowing us to time to get the place back in order so you can all enjoy the next round of golf.
