Greens renovation

Yes that time is upon us again with the West greens scheduled for Monday August 22.  In the lead up to the renovation the greens need to be softened a little bit to allow the coring machine to penetrate to the required depth and some fertiliser applied to ensure that the greens are healthy and will grow through the sanding quickly.

In the lead up to the renovation I do some soil testing to see just how the greens have fared over the past 12 months and also to see if any extra amendments to the soil profile are required. 

You may have noticed some small holes on West greens 5,13 and 17 over the past few weeks as shown in the photo below.  Around 25 such plugs are taken from the all over the green to a depth of 100mm and sent to a laboratory for analysis.  In total the sample weighs about 500 grams which is only a small representative sample of the green given that on a 500 square metre green there is around 45 tonne of sand in the top 100 mm.   The same three greens are sampled each year and I now have a long term record for these greens for comparison.  The greens were selected as the 5th is representative of the newer greens, the 13th because it represents the older greens and 17 because it is the bogey green!



Soil test hole



The results this year were quite pleasing in that the samples are all very similar and there is no need for anything extra to be added to the greens.  The actual report for 5 and 17 West is below and you can see that most nutrients are in the "desired" level and that all the key elements are within the ideal range.  It is particularly pleasing as the samples were collected on August 2nd which means that there had been no rainfall for some time and the only irrigation the greens had received was from our normal water source.  This means that the greens were about as "bad" as they could be as rainfall has a flushing effect that "cleans" the soil profile of contaminants.

Soil test result 5 West green

Soil test result 17th West 

The greens will be hollow tine aerated using 16mm tines, then have fertiliser and a soil amendment added prior to being sanded.  We will sneak in a start on the Sunday afternoon and then most of the work should be completed on the Monday given fine weather with the course closed to play again on the Tuesday following the ladies to allow us do the final touch ups.  Please bear with us through this necessary operation.