We have officially had enough of the wind for the week and it has had an extreme adverse effect on irrigation distribution with it barely abating all week.  It has been an advantage for the fairway aeration by drying out the cores to allow them to be rubbed in a little easier but that is the only positive.  One of the big negatives of the wind is the amount of leaf debris that finds its way in to the bunkers.  The photo below shows 4R bunker being blown out Friday morning when we finally got a break from the gales.

Leaves, leaves and more leaves.

The aeration continued and only 10W fairway remains on the West course.  16W was only partially done as we were breaking way too many tines on the fairway due to the roots from the Fig trees extending all the way across the fairway.  And they weren't all on the surface either as the photo of a core below shows the root about 40mm below the surface.  Yes that's solid wood on the bottom 25mm.  The good part about the roots was that they were very dry which means that the root pruning down the side of the fairway earlier this year has had the desired effect.

No wonder the 16W struggles to grow good turf.

 

Speaking of root pruning and another good result down the LHS 12R fairway.  The only problem with the pruning showing up so well is that it means we are very dry.  After the almost ridiculous 1.6 metres of rain for the first six months of 2021, we have slowed right down and have had just 141mm in July followed by 20mm in August and just 26mm thus far in September.  We certainly need some soon.

Chalk and cheese.

 

We sprayed some of the foreign couchgrass that has found its way into the centre of the River greens this week and will be plugging it out to the side of the green before re-turfing those areas.  At this stage the River greens renovation will go ahead as planned on Monday October 18 although as with just about everything in life at the moment that will be Covid dependent.

The lower player numbers due to the border closure has given us the chance to get a course to ourselves each Tuesday.  This week we were able to get a dry dethatch and mow on the West greens.  The benefit of doing this in the dry is huge with a far superior result against when we have to do it with dew.  More material is removed in the dethatch and the quality of cut in the mow is first class.  Next week we will be scarifying the West tees weather permitting. 

And thanks to Nicole for the kind post on FB earlier in the week and to those members who liked or commented.  I can't take too much credit though as it's the staff who put the runs on the board - I just plan and co-ordinate it.  So a big thanks to the crew for all they do.