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.

Not quite so cold in the mornings this week but a cool southerly most of the week kept our jackets on.  The greens have really tightened up with the colder weather which is quite natural and greens on both courses are putting nicely.  The fairways have a good cover of grass which as I often say is critical going into winter.

Some new bunker rakes have been installed on both courses for a trial and first reactions have been positive.  It is a very different rakehead and is designed to be pulled rather than pushed  with one disadvantage being that you can't really smooth out the face of the bunker by pushing sand if you need to.  One of the problems with most bunker rakes is that when they are pulled they drag the sand to the exit point but this one doesn't allow that to happen.  So far with the bunker sand being very dry they are working a treat (by those that use them!!) but the test will come when the sand is wet so we will wait and see on that front.

The new rakehead.

 

We hosted the Australian senior matchplay this week and they were given a very well prepared golf course and I would have thought we would have got some respect shown to our courses in return.  The photo below shows the shared buggy on 1W very nearly on the green.  The Australian senior OOM is used to qualify for this tournament so its not like they are novices with no knowledge of golf etiquette.

Really??

 

The irrigation install continued this week with the short range and practice greens being installed.  Thanks to the members for working around the contractors as they went about their business in such a busy area.  We are really on the home straight now with just 1R, 10R, 11R and 1W to be done.  We move to 1R next week.

I am off to the Australian Sportsturf Conference next week so there will be no Blog post for the week. 

The crazy week that is the Mick Fanning Charity golf day has come and (nearly) gone with most of the clean up completed.  The vast majority of the players are really good with the courses and considering what goes on out there there is really very little damage done.  Having been so soft for so long we have got some tyre tracking from the vehicles bumping in and out but that is unavoidable given the elaborate nature and weight of some of the activation's.

TaylorMade @ 17W.

Win a bike for a HIO @ 3R.

The Balter bar between the 18's.

Tee off here on the Adidas shoebox on 12R.

The YETI bar @ 9R.

 

So cold overnight the ice didn't melt @ 11W tee.

 

A cold but fine end to the week and at least the courses have dried out somewhat.  In general the turf is still very healthy across the courses as we head towards winter which is a very good thing.  Hopefully the rain is behind us and we can move forward and actually start using the new irrigation system!!

Players out on the River course would have seen and heard some activity in our dump area adjacent to 6R this week.  The area had literally become a swamp and access for tipping debris and then grinding it has been severely restricted.  A huge amount of material is transported there on an annual basis, even without a cyclone being thrown into the mix!!  The area has now been graded to allow for water run off and has some geo-textile material laid this week in readiness for 1000 cubic metres of recycled concrete to be installed next week to convert the dump area into a hardstand allowing for all weather access.

Prepped and ready for hardstand.

  

FREE MULCH.

 

We have dropped a couple of loads of high quality mulch in the buggy shed carpark for members to access for free.  Help yourself and please keep the area as neat and tidy as possible.

Free mulch.

 

Just shy of 100mm for this rain event with more to come in the forecast which so far has been extremely accurate.  It's incredibly wet out on the courses to say the least.  The seagulls roosting on 4W dam is never a good sign. 

Saturday morning on 4W dam!!

 

 

It's not looking good for the weekend's golf with today's forecast almost exact calling for  showers increasing late in the morning to rain in the afternoon.  At least we got 13 days without rain which last happened in December.  Today's rain will definitely get us to the somewhat unwanted figure of 100 inches since November 1.

The warmer weather earlier this week gave us what will be the last kick of growth you would think and we are quite well poised as we enter winter.  From where we were at the start of April turf wise it is a big relief to be honest.  As mentioned previously lots of rain means lots of cloud which means less growth potential.

The new pump station was commissioned over the past week and still has some tweaking to be done but we can already see much improved water distribution throughout the courses.  Although there is still some of the old pipe network in use the new pump station cycles about every one and a half hours.  Prior to the commencement of the irrigation install our old pumps cycled every 8 minutes due to the number of unseen / known leaks that we had out there.

The irrigation install has continued with 9R in progress.  They will be there much of next week and it is planned to move to the short range / practice greens area the week after the Fanning golf day.  This will mean the short range will be closed to practice and once we move to the practice greens the new " target green " as we call it, will become a practice putting green only.