A very quiet week on the courses from our work output point of view with full comps and double shotgun starts for the Vets week of golf kind of making it hard to be overly productive.  Five staff were on leave of some sort or at trade school for the week which is ideal timing given the volume of play.  The weather probably didn't behave itself as it usually does for the week but I trust the players enjoyed themselves.

On the irrigation front the actual install of sprinklers was completed last week and this week saw some of the rectifications take place.  These should be completed by the end of next week and then the pump station needs some finishing touches, including the new power supply being bought on line.  For us it will be a process of working through lifting low sprinklers and topping up trenchlines over the coming months.  The contractors will be off site after next week ending what seems to have been a marathon 18 month install which was severely hampered by the rain.  A very big thank you to all members and players for putting up with the disruption during the install.  I can assure you that when we dry out - and we will - it will be worth it. 

I doubt that the photo below is real but it gave me a laugh that a golf club in Sweden installed a trackman on one of their tees for a members competition after seeing a similar thing on the coverage of a pro tournament.  And this was the result!!

Totally relatable!!

 

I was going to try and not mention the weather after a fairly uneventful week but the forecast doesn't look good for the weekend, and it depends on who you listen to as to the expected ferocity.  It certainly sounds like we are going to get some serious wind as well as some rain.  I think the movement of the system is a little unpredictable at this stage so it's a wait and see.  

One thing we won't be using this weekend is the new irrigation system!!  The installation of 1W green and the nursery green area occurred this week so now all sprinklers are in the ground and it's time for a clean up and some rectifications and final adjustments to happen.  We will also be doing some work later in the month on repairing some of the damaged areas like at rear 4W green, RHS 16W green and front of 14W green as well as the soil stockpile areas.  There will also be a lot of repair work carried out when it's a bit warmer and the turf can establish a lot faster than at this time of year.  That will involve a lot of the buggy path entries and exits.  As part of the installation a specific sprinkler has been located to cover these areas in the hope of improving them  However given the massive amount of cart traffic we get I don't hold out much hope of holding a turf cover.   

The Vets week of golf is upon us again next week so here's hoping that the run with perfect weather they have had over the many years will continue.  Fingers crossed on that one that's for sure!! 

Pretty much sounding like a broken record here complaining about the rain but it's almost monotonous on top of being frustrating for golfers and greenkeeper's alike.  A further 65mm this week which in the scheme of things isn't that much but after 2,745mm since November 1, 2024 it's enough to soak us once again.  The lack of sunlight is really affecting the turf on the greens now, particularly the 328 greens on the River course which have thinned considerably this past week.  So much so that we solid tine aerated and dry fertilised 2 and 12R greens this morning in front of the comp and would have liked to do more but the first group in the comp rocked around in 2.5 hours!!  The soil temperatures aren't quite where they need to be to fully activate the fertiliser but any response will do at the moment.

Thursday nights 25mm came from this colorful radar!!

The irrigation contractors had a major breakdown on Wednesday that cost them several hours and they weren't able to complete 1W this week so it will be Tuesday next week for that to finish.  We then need to install the nursery greens adjacent to 17R but shouldn't need to close a hole to do that.  After that is some housekeeping and rectification works for probably another 3 weeks but again no hole closures should be needed.

On Monday and Tuesday this week we hosted a group known as "next gen amateur tour" which as the name suggests is for up and coming players under 25yo I believe.  We were pretty wet and soft after the weekend's rain but gave them as good a course as possible given a 7am Monday shotgun.  Once they started playing I noticed virtually none of them were carrying a sand bucket.  I contacted the Pro Shop and asked if they could be reminded given the damage we were receiving.  To their credit one of the organisers actually came out to 14W and filled a few divots with sand because not one divot taken that morning had been touched.  They had around 70 players and before the first round had gone through I got the collection of photos below. It looked like every player had taken a divot.

Incredible?

They played 54 holes and even though they carried a bucket for the last 36, they certainly hardly used them.  They requested to play 1W as a par 3 to allow the full 54 holes to be played.  So we set up a 150m par 3 from left of the fairway.  The photo below is the result of the "tee" with just ONE divot out of potentially 200 having any sand placed in it.

Just one of potentially 200 divots sanded.

So if that's how the "next generation" of golfers are going to treat a course that they are guests at, I don't know if I am ready for them!! (Feeling old and cranky!!)

You certainly couldn't argue with the forecast for today as it was just about spot on with 15mm of rain coming down in the thunderstorm just after 6am this morning.  It did wipe most of the comp morning players out but the intrepid players form Coolangatta Surf Club still came out on the West, except for one group who somehow found themselves at 2R instead!!

Not really a lot to report on the courses but the turf certainly enjoyed the almost warm sunny conditions earlier in the week.  I just updated our bi-monthly plan and there's a lot of golf coming up so the warmer and brighter the better for the turf.  We will also have a smallish crew in the next few weeks with some annual leave and trade school commitments taking some staff away which is an ideal time of year for it to happen.  As we dried out this week there was a lot of dust generated on our access tracks due to us using a recycled concrete roadbase material after the cyclone which is about 1/10^th  the cost of regular roadbase.  We will be trialling a dust suppression compound next time we dry out to that extent.

I will have a first next week with some blind golfers playing on the course.  I know the process but have never seen it in action so looking forward to it.  Hope they don't complain about course conditions too much!!

The irrigation install is on the last hole and we got the chance to run a couple of large cycles this week and as mentioned previously the pressure and distribution of the water is certainly first class.  There is still some work to be done that is classified as rectifications and also the removal of the old satellites and some valve boxes in the coming weeks.

One of the questions often put to Superintendents is "sunrise or sunset?"  After this beautiful sunrise across 13R green and the Tweed River this week I know where my answer lies.

 

 

An interesting but at least warm way to start Saturday morning after someone lit fire to our green waste pile @ 6R.  You just never know what you're going to get each morning!!

 

Nearly ten days without rain is a very nice break and the courses are showing it as they finally dry out.  Light winds and fine sunny days make for excellent golfing conditions and there has certainly been lots of players taking advantage.

Earlier this week saw nearly the last of the tree works associated with the cyclone.  While removing some hangers one of the tree loppers found some substantial structural damage in two large Eucalypt's between the two 18's and there was another dead tree in the area that was also removed.  Two of the trees have been left as "habitat trees" as they are full of hollows which will give some excellent nesting spots for the variety of birds on the courses.  There are already some Cockatoo's that have moved in as seen in the photos below.

   

The two trees between the 18's.

 

First residents??  Location circled below.

 

That's where the cockatoo is located!!

The greens on both courses are holding up very well for this time of year.  One of the issues that we can experience in winter is disease but thus far our preventative applications have kept them clean, which given the amount of leaf wetness that there has been is a great win.  The Poa annua (Wintergrass) population is also down on the past two years in the greens which is also a good thing.

The irrigation system install continues and as mentioned last week there is certainly light at the end of the tunnel with 11R in progress and only 1W remaining.  It was certainly a fairly big week for us as the power to our old irrigation system was dis-connected along with the old pump station meaning we are now only using the new system.  Probably not that exciting for golfers but I can tell you it is for us.  We ran a couple of large irrigation programs this week and the water pressure supplied from the new pump station was extra impressive to say the least.  The new pump station only has slightly more capacity than our old one  but the bigger new pipe size allows for greater water flow and resultant pressure.    

It seems the rain just won't leave us alone with another 80+mm fall earlier in the week.  It was enough to virtually close the courses on Monday and Tuesday so we took the opportunity to give greens on both courses an aeration with some 6mm diameter solid tines.  With no play we also took the opportunity of leveling some areas around the new sprinklers on the greens.  I feel for the people down on the central coast who got smashed with the weather event but was relieved that we dodged that bullet for a change.

I have been following a long range forecaster for a while now and he has been quite accurate.  He is based on the Sunshine Coast and was spot on with the Hunter floods earlier in the year and with this weeks storm.  His next prediction is for a "weather event" on August 20 so will be watching that closely.  His prediction for 2026 is a bit alarming though as he is calling for widespread floods and that the recent floods have been "puddles" in comparison to what's coming.  Watch this space......

The Conference I attended in Sydney was a great success and once again autonomous machinery was very much at the forefront at the trade show.  A fully autonomous electric fairway mower certainly took my eye and it has been successfully used on golf courses in Europe for some time now.  The initial cost is substantial at nearly twice a traditional mower but the payback is potentially there.  Apparently a course in NZ has one on order so it will be an interesting watch. Nearly 1500 people visited the trade show over 2 days and it was a full house at nearly every educational session.

The irrigation installation hit a hurdle this week with a significant amount of rock encountered on both 1 and 10R.  The rock obviously cant be left in the trenches so it had to be trucked away and replacement material bought in.  It has delayed us somewhat but the light is at the end of the tunnel with just over two holes remaining.  There is still a lot of rectification works on trenches and low sprinklers to be done but at least the major works should be finished by the end of this month.

Some of the rock encountered.

More of the same.

 

Some more tree work next week between the two 18's with a couple of large badly damaged gums to come down as well as  a couple of dead trees.  Both 18's will play short on Monday and Tuesday to allow the works to be done and 10R closed for irrigation installation.