Well the rain seems to have stopped for the moment after 18½ inches since January 28!!  The water table is just about as high as it can get and not dropping which is a little unusual.   With this amount of heat, humidity and moisture I am certainly glad that there were no Bentgrass greens to cope with it as I doubt they would have survived it.   

 

It is amazing just how well the course takes the water though and I remember Doug Robinson and Jeff Gambin (both former CTHGC Supers) coming to visit me when I was at Victoria back in the 1980's and they were telling me about the massive drainage project they were undertaking at CTHGC using 900mm pipe in sections.  Considering I barely had any drainage piping installed at Victoria I thought they were crazy but thank heavens they did as it is still just as effective today.  That's the system that runs from the dam on 11W across 3W, 4R, 5R and 6R to the dam on the RHS of 6R green before it leaves the property.  Probably a third of the course is drained through this system which on basically flat land is quite an achievement.  That's a shot of 6R dam below before being enlarged as part of those works.

 

6R dam

 

The heat and moisture has certainly got the grass growing so a mixture of some growth regulator and herbicide was applied to all the fairways this week.  There is a little bit of dis-colouration from the herbicide on a few areas but nothing to worry about.  The West greens also got a granular fertliser applied to them this week and the rain was actually quite handy in helping to water it in.  This is the first time I have used a granular on them since planting and was one of the ideas bought back from the recent trip to the USA.   The photo below shows the size of each granule which is quite small and has no effect on ball roll once it moves into the turf canopy.

 

Granular fertiliser.

 

The turf arrives on Monday for the remaining West course areas after having to cancel it last week due to the wet conditions. 

 

And some more shots for the "really??" file from this week.  The weirdest of them all was 12R tee where a wedge must have been used to make that much mess which was right in the middle of the men's back tee.  The divots on 5R were replicated on a couple of other fairways and thanks to the ladies who sanded them on Tuesday as they were originally just left untouched and I guess taking two swipes to get out of the bunker on 3W would leave you a little tired for raking duties!!

5R fairway.

12R tee? At least they tried to sand them!

3W bunker