Course Update – Wednesday, 16 April 2025
A week of sunshine has come and gone, allowing the maintenance team to get a mow on most surfaces last week. Still plenty of areas holding water after a mammoth couple of months of rain. The incessant 2-5mm showers aren’t helping a great deal, but we are fairly pleased with the state of the playing surfaces after all the weather we’ve had.
- Greens are steadily rolling between 9 ½ and 10 ½ on the Stimp, and providing a fairly smooth ball roll. There is a fair few signs of disease on multiple Greens that we had put preventative applications out for, and some curative treatments as well. The aim is to try and get them through this tricky period before the weather turns and they remain scarred through the winter months.
- Top-dressing continued last week, and was done again this week to further improve ball roll and consistency throughout the Greens. We will look to start backing this practice off, likely every 2-3 weeks, now that the growth rates have declined on the Greens. The sand doesn’t rub in quite as well when the leaf isn’t standing up throughout the day due to lack of growth.
- Around the Greens are still quite damp and spongy from the amount of rain, and from copping some of the Green’s sprinkler head overspray. Hard to combat when you need to irrigate the Greens after fertiliser or fungicide applications. We will look at possibly targeting these areas with a Solid Tine to help push some air through the profile in the coming weeks.
- The Air2g2 has been back out pushing air through the Greens profiles and alleviating some of the compaction from the last month of wet weather.
- Greens 19, 20 and 21 are looking really good, another week of sunshine will do them wonders. Received another heavy top-dress this week to further smoothen them, along with a few more nutrition applications will see us in good stead next week. All three Greens are being walk mowed at 3.5mm.
Bunkers are always a hot topic after rain events at BGC and we thank everyone for their patience once again, whilst we got them back into a playable state. The machine rake has got most of the sand back into playing zones, and we will start targeting some of the Geomat (Bunker Lining) that has been exposed from the machine rake.
- The 20th Bunker membrane (DuraCrumb) has been installed and we have begun putting sand in and will start to compact it over the coming days. The Bunkers on 19 will receive some TLC before opening, as we look to investigate the poor drainage issues in both Greenside Bunkers.
- Bunkers that have a white stake in them are compulsory no play zones, and casual water still applies if the rest of the bunker has been raked but isn’t draining well.
Tees and Fairways are back in a respectable state after some sunshine and a mow. The disease infestation that riddled a lot of them has eased with a week of dry sunny weather (Pray for more). We now balance the art of ensuring as much of the playing surfaces are mown in the short weeks that surround Easter. We should also start to see the worm castings back off once the water table subsides and there is a little more oxygen in the soil profile. Tees and Fairways are still being cut at 10mm, with a Collar cut around the greens at 7.5mm.
We will begin to start repairing maintenance tracks and cart paths now that most of the rain has passed us (hopefully), and will look to extend some of our little drainage tracks along paths that pool with water, so that future rain events don’t lead to excessive puddling.
The Surveyors are back on site working with Atlas Golf to ensure Greens 11, 12 and 13 are ready to go for when we start their resurfacing. This should speed things along when Atlas arrives back in a few weeks to begin and there shouldn’t be any delays.
Hope everyone has a Happy Easter. Look forward to seeing you on the Course.
Alex Blakey
Assistant Course Superintendent
The Brisbane Golf Club
