Irrigation seems to be the hot topic for us on the courses at the moment. Last week in the rain we took the opportunity to replace a section of the pump station manifold and some valves. On trying to fire back up the system we found that the foot valve on the pumps was seemingly faulty. We had to get a Franna crane in who pulled it out and we duly confirmed our thoughts. Fortunately a company in Brisbane keeps stock and a mercy dash up there late Friday secured a replacement. The Franna was back in on Saturday morning and the new foot valve installed. Kudos to our two irrigation guys who did the job for us, our own staff members Simon and Dave.

The Franna in action pulling out the old foot valve.

 

New foot valve ready to go.

Then this Thursday a blowout on the right hand side of 17R and as seemingly always happens, irrigation problems come in threes and all of a sudden we had an issue at 17W dam and 5R fairway. Two days work which ties up nearly four men taking them away from other duties.

The other big topic this week was the River course greens renovations and we had some good rain and some bad rain during the week. The good rain came in the storm just as the boys finished on Monday afternoon which washed everything in quite nicely and the bad rain was the storm that hit about 12.30pm on Monday that dampened everything making the result very messy.  The photo of the radar below is just as we finished with the arrow indicating exactly where the courses are. Unfortunately it went for a bit too long and produced a little bit too much heavy rain and caused quite a bit of wash which needed to be attended to on Tuesday. Some more light showers during the week and some good rain was certainly welcome and helped until a downpour on Thursday around lunchtime when we got 9mm in five minutes. Once again we had significant wash which then had to be scraped off the greens on Friday in front of the members comp. Not the perfect result that we were looking for as we couldn’t get any granular fertiliser or amendments spread on the greens so they will have to wait. We were also unable to get the greens collars scarified over the last couple of weeks with the rain so hopefully will next week.  Our new trailers got a good workout with the sanding of the River greens and performed extremely well as did all of the staff in what is not the most enjoyable task. We don’t do it for fun or to annoy you I can assure you.

The radar just as we finished on Monday with the storm haeding straight for us.

 

 

 

New trailers made a difference.

Some of the wash debris on the greens Friday morning.

 

I mentioned last week about the downpour that we got on Friday morning and one of the Dads Army regulars John Clark who lives in Pinehurst snapped this great photo of the courses just after the rain finished.

West Lakes!!

And speaking of rain, the 196mm we have received thus far in October has us at 1963mm year to date, just shy of 2 metres.  1664mm is our average yearly rainfall total with the highest recorded being 3192mm in 1906 and that total is way in front of the second wettest which was 1999 with 2874mm.  Let's hope we don't challenge either of those figures this year.