Greetings from the maintenance department, a timely update as we surge towards the end of the year and into the storm season. Yet again, it feels as if the 7-day cycle is falling on the weekend, so it appears we get to reset on a Monday morning and take in whatever weather damage has occurred.<\/p>\n
Last weekend we thankfully didn\u2019t cop the brunt of the cell that raced through the city, we received 25mm on Friday afternoon, followed by another 19mm on Saturday evening. The course has fared really well, albeit Bunkers holding water, Tee to Green we are in a great spot.<\/p>\n
Our on-course Greens are kicking along nicely, we\u2019re seeing the new Tif Greens perform well, areas on 11 & 13 that were lacking a couple of weeks ago have started to cover really nicely and we only expect that to improve with this weather. A couple of the collars appear to be drying out a bit which we are managing with extra irrigation when needed. The 20th<\/sup> Green, which is certainly still weak in areas, looks to be improving after some \u201cCouch Mite\u201d damage, and we\u2019re just trying to keep moisture levels up to combat any more mite occurrences, as they feed on weak & dry turf. Once the new year ticks around and the GRP is behind us, we\u2019ll be able to give 19, 20 & 21 a good rest, have them jump back into life before ideally utilising them to further complete works on the other holes on course. An ideal scenario for us is to give all the Greens a 2-week break throughout the course of the year where we can get some Bunker work complete as well as drainage works, and most importantly, give these young Greens a good rest. We are also back to that time of the year where we will continue to Dust the Greens weekly, I think it was fairly obvious to all that the frequent dusting program really improved the Greens last summer, and this will work tenfold now that the Greens will be a consistent surface going forward.<\/p>\n We lightly Verti-cut the Tees at the start of last week, which is a scheduled maintenance practice for us, especially over the summer months. It\u2019s a key practice to ensuring the health of our Tees and we will look to do this bi-monthly over the growing months. There is a good chance we will utilise some of our sand storage from the GRP to top-dress Tees throughout these months as well. 14, 15 & 16, as well as the Driving Range Tees will be completed next week. Just looking at these Tees today, it\u2019s hard to tell we\u2019ve done any form of renovation on them.<\/p>\n New greens are flourishing with this warm weather, 2, 7, 8 and the Chipping Green are all being cut with a Triplex (ride-on) mower at 3.5mm and still receiving regular top-dresses. 1 & 9 are covering really well and we expect to give them a cut this week and a hand top-dress, whilst 10, 17 & 18 aren\u2019t far away.<\/p>\n We have scheduled to do a light brush on our fairways next week, which is a very non-invasive renovation method. Essentially, we\u2019re just trying to stand the leaf of the plant up and take out any of the thatch build up on the surface of the fairways and mow it off straight away. This will likely take a couple of days to complete all the fairways and will aim to do as much as possible before golf gets out there. Because of the rain we\u2019ve had recently, it shouldn\u2019t cause too much dust and shouldn\u2019t be too disruptive to play. Again, a vital process of turf health is to ensure we\u2019re navigating the thatch and organic matter build up in our Greens, Tees and Fairways. We will look to do more frequent light versions of a renovation that will recover quicker and be less invasive throughout the year, instead of trying to cram everything into a week come the start of the growing season.<\/p>\n We are still plugging away at a few projects on the holes that are out of play, and tidying up areas of the course that have needed attention. Notably, the drainage on the left-hand side of 10 Fairway, toward the Green, has had issue with water pooling and we discovered the drainage leading towards 19 (down the hill) was compromised. After finding the PVC pipe down the line and re-instating areas that were broken, the issue has been resolved. Similarly, in between 1 & 18, we\u2019ve dug a new drainage trench and lined with new stormwater PVC to assist with the drainage issues (close to 100m of Trench from pit to pit). The existing pipe was crushed, full of tree roots and leads to the existing stormwater which is asbestos. To combat this, we\u2019ve put a new pit next to the old pit, that will overflow when full, and trickle into the existing drainage line that works.<\/p>\n Plenty still to do out there, and we are ticking boxes regularly. We hope everyone is enjoying their stints at the golf courses around town and look forward to having everyone back out on course soon. A friendly reminder to repair your pitch marks and fill your divots, those new greens need all the help they can get and repairing pitch marks goes a long way to ensuring they remain smooth and in top condition.<\/p>\n