Friday, January 30, 2015

A couple of cooler nights and days have given the West greens some much needed breathing space.  On Thursday morning at 5.30am it was 23 degrees and 52% humidity which is the lowest for some months now.  The greens are still under significant stress and there is only more summer weather to come.

17 West green has been reworked and all went well during the week apart from two irrigation blowouts on Tuesday morning which meant there was no water available for the West greens if required during the day.  Fortunately the day stayed relatively cool and cloudy.  The ridge line that ran across the green has been moved back to allow the green to be more receptive to incoming shots.  The green was taken back out to its original size which we found by excavating the root barrier that was installed all those years ago which was essentially useless given the couchgrass invasion of the putting surface.  450mm of soil was removed from the perimeter of the green to try and ensure all the foreign couch was removed.  A new growing medium was installed and the lip on the front bunker was also lowered and new irrigation installed.  The green will be stolonised / planted with Tifeagle next Tuesday.

Whilst the contractors were on site an extension to the mens back tee on 14 West was installed so as to change the angle of play and hopefully prevent the big hitters trying to play to the green which is blind from the tee and potentially quite dangerous.


450mm being removed from perimeter 17W
Bunker lip being lowered

17W finished and waiting for stolons

2 comments:

  1. I'm just wondering about the need to lower the bunker lip. Can you enlighten me please.

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    1. Hello Graham, The front lip was lowered as over time it had got higher with sand being blasted up from play and made it very difficult for a lot of players to get out. It would seem from the excavation we did that the lip is over 600mm above where it was originally and we removed 300mm. There are many other bunkers with similar build up but it is a task that can generally only be done whilst the green is out of play.

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