Another week of pretty much routine maintenance with some cooler temperatures overnight making not only sleeping a lot more comfortable but also allowing soil temperatures to start cooling which is a godsend for the remaining bentgrass greens.  This time next year will be a different story when the warmer it stays the better for the next stage of the TifEagle conversion on the West course as the TifEagle thrives in the hot conditions.  The new greens are really coming in to their own at the moment and are improving every day.  I would like to get another heavy sanding in to help finally level the surface off but that will depend on the weather and golfing programme.

It was also a week of very high tides with water inundating some of the lower areas on 1R fairway and the short range leaving some burn evident on the common couchgrasses that are on these areas.  Over the years we have planted a salt resistant grass called "Seashore Paspalum" in these areas and as the photo shows it really is salt resistant!!  Many courses in SE Asia where they have poor quality water have used this grass and it is so versatile that it can be used throughout the course and mown at different heights including putting green height.  Quite amazing!!

Seashore Paspalum still green

 

And I was checking my photos from the construction this week for an article I have been asked to write and came across a video that I had forgotten about of 17W green.  It was taken on a day as windy as any of those this week and shows the flag on 17W green not even moving whilst the surrounding trees and 13W temporary flag are thrashing about.  Air movement across a putting green in particular is critical to assist cooling the surface so it's a good demonstration of one of the factors that caused 17W to fail as a bentgrass green.