It's pretty obvious that if you want to plan an event of some description and you need good weather then just follow the dates the Cool Tweed Vets use for their week of golf!!  Another stunning week of weather this week and as always come Friday the courses are in better condition than they were at the start of the week, such is the diligence of players and marshals alike with respect to course care.  Which is quite a statement considering we probably had close to 500 players each day this week!!

I mentioned the fertiliser last week that has been applied to the fairways which has had a great result in greening them up and this week with the warm day time temperatures the  undesirable grasses in the fairways - Kikuyu, Wintergrass and Blue Couch - have sucked up the fertiliser and started growing to the extent that weed control has been bought forward.  We started this week with a product that acts very slowly but very effectively across a range of the weeds in the fairways.  It is applied at just 300 millimetres per hectare which is only a bit more than a cupful and when you consider that 18R fairway is a hectare in area that means one cup over that entire fairway!!  To do that you need extremely accurate equipment and competent staff which we have.  Over the coming weeks another product will be used that does cause some dis-coloration but it is only temporary.  We are also spot spraying some of the harder to kill weeds.

Blue couch and Kikuyu enjoying the fertiliser and sun

Spot treatment of weeds on fairways

The River greens received a solid tine aerate last week which was the first time they had been opened up over the winter months.  The back 9 West greens received the same treatment again today which is part of their ongoing program.  Opening the greens lets some much needed oxygen to reach the rootzone which is very important as TifEagle is known for poor root development.  Thus far we still have roots deeper than the hole cup which is very good.  As one of the Supers I visited in the USA said - "it's keeping them there that's the hard part Pete"!!   

Great root depth

And just for fun a slo-mo video of the solid tine aeration of the West greens this morning.