And the weird weather continues with no real heat as yet and more light showers hanging around today.  I've been saying this since almost this time last year but we really need some heat and sunlight to get the turf moving.

Probably some of the busiest days of golf I have seen in my time here this last week with nearly 600 people booked to play today until the rain sent them scattering.  The social play has been on the River course and I don't think I have ever heard so many desperate shouts of ''fore'' resonating around the courses as this week.  There really are some people out there getting ambition and ability mixed up!!   It's pretty hard to get much work done with so many players so there was a lot of work on the sidelines this week with quite a bit of time spent at the treatment plant working on a dodgy pump. 

Off google maps earlier today...pretty accurate!!

 

Last Saturday morning was one for the annals with the drainage pit at the rear of 9R tee all but destroyed by a car.  We still haven't figured out what actually happened but there must be a vehicle somewhere with some serious damage.

?????

 

Please explain?

The forecast doesn't predict too much rain in the coming week so we will probably end up with the third wettest year on record with 2,825mm recorded thus far.  That sits behind 1999 with 2,874mm and 1906 with 3,193mm being the wettest ever.  Perhaps the most startling fact is that over the past three years we have recorded 2,735mm, 2,413mm and the 2,825mm this year for a three year running total of 7,973mm which is just shy of eight metres of rain.  That is the first time since records started in 1886 that there has been three consecutive years of more than 2,000mm and there has only been more than 2,000mm in two consecutive years a handful of times.  So we have certainly experienced something unique.

The general weather is still very cool for this time of year with the ''normal'' summer not quite here yet.  Yesterday was the summer solstice so you would think that we should really start to warm up now but we are way behind where we need to be for the turf.  The photo below shows 13R fairway collection area on the left side of the fairway and all the divots are still evident.  At this time of year you would expect much more rapid growth and very few divots showing.

Divots still evident @ 13R.

 

Having said all that about the lack of heat you generally don't see a Lace Monitor until it is really hot in the thick of summer but this two and a half metre giant was taking a stroll out the front of the maintenance shed today.

 

 

The greens on both courses got de-thatched this week and we went a little deeper than we normally would at this time of year following the less severe renovation that they received due to the weather.  This will be ongoing throughout summer as we try and stay on top of the organic matter build up.  The greens are mowed straight after and it is interesting to note the ''scalped'' effect that is noticeable on the 328 River greens compared to the TifEagle West greens with no apparent scalp.  328 is notorious for becoming puffy and therefore to scalping in these circumstances.

 

 

Not much to report from the courses this week with three very warm days in the middle that were a bit of a shock to the system.  We were able to get another sanding on to the West greens to help them level up after the renovation and they will probably need another as do the River greens which will hopefully happen next week.

We finished up with spot on 110mm of rain last week which was just what was needed and as I mentioned last week almost all of it soaked in which was really beneficial.  

I have mentioned bunker raking on here many a time and saw a couple this week that make you wonder why we bother raking or maintaining them at all.  Recently with the strong winds we have had to do a lot of blowing to get the leaves out as most bunkers are very good leaf collectors.  The blowing has reduced the frequency of raking but when you see this it makes you wonder why we do rake.  The top photo is 16W fairway bunker within an hour of being raked today and there is zero attempt to make any effort of repairing the footmarks.  The bottom one is of 8R greenside first thing in the morning so it has been wet down by overnight irrigation but you can still see the unrepaired footmarks where the legend played five shots and I assume got out on the fifth.  Perhaps the only consolation is that they didn't walk up the bunker face to get out.  Please leave the bunkers the way you would like to find them!!

Are these your footprints??

Maybe time for a bunker lesson?

Nearly 50mm of most welcome rainfall over the past two days and it was probably more than that as it was sideways most of the time with the strong gusty winds literally blowing it over the top of the rain gauge.  To have gone from being so wet to so dry in such a short time is pretty amazing and the ground just lapped up the rainfall.  The best part was that we got nearly 100% infiltration of the rain as there is hardly a puddle to be seen.

One of the issues that we had develop with the sudden drying out was the creation of some "dry patch" areas on greens on both courses.  Dry patch is a bit different to drought stress causing a green to dry out in general as it is more localised and caused by some of the sand in the soil profile becoming water repellent.   A couple of the greens on the River course dried out due to sprinkler failure but on the West greens it was more to do with the sand in the greens.  The series of photos below show an area of dry patch on 15W green and the associated soil moisture readings from the area.

The photos show the dry patch area at the top of the photo (slightly dis-coloured) and the arrow is pointing at the dry patch area and you can see two small holes where the moisture probe took a reading of 8.0 %  Less than 12 inches below you can see another two small holes where the moisture probe took a reading of 28.1%.

Dry patch at the top and the probe holes visible.

 

Bottom reading.

Top reading in the dry area.

 

The West greens have recovered extremely well and the rainfall has made them surge forward with some of the most growth I have seen from them.  Unfortunately that soft lush growth is just what the ducks want and they are having a field day on them at the moment and leaving their droppings behind which isn't ideal for putting.

And this is why I hate ducks!!

 

The Aus Open is on in Melbourne and given the winter and spring that they have experienced down there the condition of the courses is an absolute credit to the Supers and their crews.  The wettest October on record for both and although they are called "sand belt" even 25mm of rain can wreak havoc and from what I have seen the bunkers at both courses have been restored several times after washing away in the rain over the past two months.  How they grow the quality of couch fairways that they produce down there astounds me even though I spent fifteen years at Victoria and oversaw the conversion from cool season Poa fairways to warm season Couch.  The 1981 Open was played on Poa fairways and if the tournament was held a week later the fairways would have been dead as the Poa had melted out with a couple of high temperature days.  In those days virtually no one played at Victoria over summer as the fairways were virtually devoid of grass until the couchgrass started to cover over in very late summer.  There was no such thing as fairway irrigation and indeed for the first five years I was there only the greens were watered which was commonplace for most of the sandbelt clubs back in the day.  Oh and for the 1981 Open we had a crew of just nine compared to nudging fifty for this year!!

The West greens renovation went off really well this week with nice dry sunny weather which resulted in the perfect renovation conditions.  The greens actually kicked along a bit last weekend with the warmer temperatures but I still didn't consider them healthy enough to work them really hard.  They received a double de-thatching which compares to a quadruple scarify and double de-thatch last year so surface disruption was at a minimum. They were then hollow tine aerated which means a core is removed and then the cores were rubbed back in to the surface.  The remaining dry thatchy remnants were then blown off before amended sand was applied to fill the holes.  The sand is amended with gypsum and organic humate.  A 12:10:11 (NPK) granular fertiliser with additional magnesium was then applied to all greens.  On Tuesday afternoon about all you could see was sand but already today the turf leaves are pushing back through.

Some of the ''chaff'' extracted from the West greens.

 

I mentioned last week about the sudden dry snap and it being severe enough for drainage lines to start showing.  Well that continued this week with many more showing up including two that I have never seen before.  A herringbone drainage system has ''appeared'' on 16W fairway and the rising sewer main from the clubhouse has shown up on 9W fairway together with a drainage line from the front of the maintenance shed.  I don't think the drainage lines on 16W work as that was our wettest section of fairway this year!!

 

Herringbone drainage @ 16W.

Sewer main at the top and drainage line below.

If the weather co-operates next week we will be lifting some turf on the edge of River greens 3 and 12 where the collar has built up and is now preventing water from running off the green causing water to pool and injure the turf.  They are only quite minor adjustments but very necessary.  I say ''if the weather co-operates'' as there is a fair bit of rain in the forecast and to be honest we could do with a good drop!! 

And just like that we are back to full nearly full irrigation across both courses.  It seems like two years since we have had irrigation going out at this level and it seems weird to see the dry patch areas around the courses.  Even the drain lines are showing up in some areas which is also weird to see.  It's certainly a bit different from trying to keep them clear and draining that's for sure.

Drain line evident on 18R.

 

The difference in the River greens recovery from renovation with the warmth of the past week is most welcome with some good solid growth helping them fill in quite nicely and the benefit of the various amendments that were applied to them now most evident.  We were able to get another sanding on to them on Thursday this week which helps level the surface out as we lower the mowing height.

 

Rubbing the sand in on 11R.

The West greens renovation is planned to go ahead next Monday and for the first time in a very long time there is no rain in the forecast.  It will still be a less agreesive renovation with the greens still weakened from the lack of sunlight this year.  We had planned a couple of fertiliser applications for them this week but they couldn't happen due to the windy conditions.  We were able to get the greens collars scarified which is a great head start and we also got the tees on both courses aerated.  

It was good to get away for a break but the weather in WA was appalling with rain every day and a couple of single digit temperature days.  At least it improved a little here but still nowhere near November temperatures yet.

Those low temperatures still have the River greens recovering very slowly from their renovation.  I have spoken to several clubs around SE Queensland and they are all in the same boat after such a tough time with the weather since the floods and near record playing numbers causing plenty of wear and therefore stress on the plant.  We were able to get another sanding out on Tuesday and are planning to repeat the dose again next Tuesday which will help level the surface up while the mowing height is coming back down.  

The West greens renovation is scheduled for next Monday week and like the River greens it will be a much lighter than normal reno.  TifEagle doesn't really like heavy thatch removal so in their current state of health once again we will concentrate on aeration via core removal.  The soil tests for the West greens are much better than the River but there will still be some amendments added and they will be incorporated in the sand that is applied as a top dressing. 

Finally got to clean most of the courses up today with a break in the wind that has been relentless with leaf debris strewn across the courses making mowing and raking difficult.  And we had probably the most difficult irrigation repair we have encountered this week with a pipe splitting in two places at the same time.  What made it so bad was that it was almost wrapped around the Norfolk Pine at the back of 13R green.  Hand digging was not an option although the irrigation team tried for a while.  Fortunately our backhoe operator Pete McConnell came to the rescue and helped us out.  Then the fun came with the first section of pipe being what is known as ''rural poly'' and the next section a low density type of poly pipe that we have never encountered before and that fittings were not available.  A bit of ''engineering'' to make up some fittings and hopefully we have got it right.  The pipe doesn't appear on any of the rather scratchy plans we have and would probably date from more than fifty years ago.

The ''trench'' at 13R green!!  And digging it below!!

A total of 170mm for last week and we certainly dodged a bullet on Sunday afternoon when the low pressure system hit landfall south of us.  It could have been so much worse than just being as wet as we are.  The River came within 75mm (three inches) of coming over the levee bank on Monday mornings high tide.

The heavy rain has caused quite a bit of wash on the River greens which is a combination of some of the de-thatching material that didn't get picked up and unfortunately also some of the amendments that were either applied or mixed in the sand.  The greens are recovering very slowly and no sun following the renovation has growth levels at a very low rate despite the fertiliser.  They will get mown today and then slowly be bought back down to normal mowing height over the coming weeks.  But it will be a slow recovery period although some good high temperatures have been forecast for late in this week which will help enormously. 

I will be taking some leave for a couple of weeks so the Blog will also have a rest.

Washlines indicated.

 

Probably the toughest greens renovation I have done here thanks to the weather.  Constant showers throughout Monday then a dump of 36mm Monday night and more rain through Tuesday really hampered the operation.  We had a similar storm after day one last year that caused significant ''wash'' on the greens as well, that has to be rubbed off before any other works which further delayed us.  I have said many times before that the drier the conditions the better.  What made it more frustrating was the rain during the day seemed to be localised on us and you could see blue skies and clear conditions to the west throughout the day.  The wet conditions also made picking up the cores more laborious with almost every core having to be hand shovelled off the greens.  We did get a break on Tuesday afternoon when things dried a little but it was a hard slog.

It was too wet to get any of the hand applied amendments out on Tuesday so that was reserved for Thursday when lo and behold it rained again.  We persevered though and kudos to the three staff who battled through some pretty disgusting weather to get the job done.  The weather was so bad that only six veterans turned up to play and the ladies completely cancelled which at least gave us the course to ourselves. 

The topdressing sand was also an issue as it needs to be dry to rub in properly and that was an almost impossibility given the weeks weather.  The sand we use is amended with a number of products that are blended at the sand suppliers yard.  One of the products is humate and it and the sand it is being mixed with need to be relatively dry to obtain a satisfactory blend.  Unfortunately with all the rain we have been getting that hasn't been possible so there are some small ''balls'' on the greens which are just compacted humate and will get broken up by the mowers when we get to them.

The greens will look a little different from each other as some were only hollow tyne aerated while other were both de-thatched and hollow tyned.  It was probably the softest renovation the greens have had due to the weakness of the turf after a very poor turf growing winter. 

Seemed to be fine out west most of the week.

 

Balls of humate.

We were probably lucky that the idiot four wheel driver who decided a golf course was a good place to do some burnouts only damaged the end of the long range and not nearby greens, tees or fairways.

End of the long range.

 

And very pleasing to see that Royal Melbourne GC Superintendent Richard Forsyth was inducted in to the Victorian golf industry hall of fame last night.  It's not often that Supers are included in such illustrious company but when you are one of the best in the world then it's fitting that the golf industry recognises you as we are a vital cog in the game.  I spoke to Richard today and he quipped ''Illustrious company indeed and I have the distinction of being the worst golfer in the group''.  Congratulations to a very good old friend.

 

Much of this week was spent preparing for the River green renovation that starts next week, including machinery preparation and an application of fertiliser to the greens to get them moving.  If ever you needed convincing that renovating greens is necessary then you need look no further than the turnaround on 2R green which has been remarkable to say the least.  Temperatures aren't still where I would like them to be, especially to renovate, although I sat on the motorbike seat on Thursday and it was almost too hot to sit on which is a first for the season and at 5am Friday morning we topped 20 degrees in the compound for the first time this season so hopefully we are on the move upward.

The forecast doesn't look good for next week so the renovation won't actually be fully planned out until Monday morning when we get a feel for what the weather will be bring for the week.  It will be a very different renovation from past years with the many shaded greens not being scarified or de-thatched as they are just still too weak.  All greens will be hollow tine aerated and a range of soil amendments applied to replace what has been leached out of the soil profile by the constant rainfall.   If time / weather permits the greens collars will be scarified as well.

Thoughts are with pretty much the southern half of Australia who are currently dealing with floods and if you look at the actual rainfall figures they haven't been too high (compared to what we get) but the ground just can't take any more.  At Yarrawonga & Border GC they have been ''waiting'' to flood as water will be released from dams upstream and the flood plains will go under.  Most of the courses on the Yarra River in Melbourne are under with parts of Kew GC four metres under. Also thinking of those in the USA with the devastating effects of Hurricane Ian on communities and golf courses with some 1200 golf courses suffering some damage from Hurricane related weather.  That works out to be nearly 8% of the US market and there are still courses closed now.

I have had a few readers ask about the ''worm farmers'' that I mentioned last week.  Well they were a contracting company that provided mowing services to clubs and proposed to collect ALL the clippings and compost them to create a worm farm and then extract some liquid fertiliser from the process.  They were doomed to fail here because I think they obviously underestimated the growth rates that we can experience and one of the photos below shows their ''fleet'' of mowers that were supposedly going to mow the entire property apart from greens, tees and green surrounds.  The fleet consisted of just two five gang fairway mowers, one seventy two inch outfront rough mower and one sixty inch mid mount tractor rough mower.  The other photos show some of the resultant ''mowing'' that they were able to achieve.

The four strong ''fleet''.

   

9R fairway looking back down the fairway.

9R front of the green.

 

8R fairway on the dogleg.

It's hard to believe that six years ago today I was writing about the end of week one of the conversion of the back nine greens on the West course to TifEagle and in particular 13W, which was ready for planting that day.  The way the weather was then is so far different to this year it's almost scary.  We were having much warmer consistent temperatures at the time rather than what we are experiencing this year, with the variable weather conditions continuing this week.  So much so that I doubt I would want to plant any greens just now.  Looking back it was amazing that throughout the two year project we were only affected by heavy rain once and it did no major damage.  I couldn't imagine trying the same project over the past two summers as the type and volume of rain we have been getting would destroy new greens construction works. 

13W green starts October 2016.

In 2017 we started the front nine greens and this was my opening comment on the blog on October 6, 2017:

Well it was only 45mm of rain that fell but it is some of the most welcome rain I have seen here.  A nice soaking rain that was just what we needed with very little run off.  For the first time since I have been here I recorded a zero rainfall month during September.  Indeed since July 20 we had received just 4.6mm of rain until last Sunday!!

How things have changed??!!

Access road @ rear 1W green October 2017.

Back to the present and a short week on the courses but plenty happening including some vandalism on Monday night when we lost nine flagsticks, a couple of signs and multiple tee markers.  No real turf damage which was fortunate and it looked like they were on foot as a couple of the flagsticks finished up in Tweed City.  Not really what we wanted after a fairly wild long weekend of weather had tree debris strewn all over the courses and the vandalism just added to the to-do list as we started to put the place back together.  In amongst all the other course works this week there were twelve repairs effected on the irrigation system.  Despite the rainfall we still need an operational system and it is literally hanging by a thread. 

Very sad to hear of the passing of Phil Dark last week.  Phil came to the club in 2000 after some of the most tumultuous times in the club's history and together with determined Presidents and Boards put the club on an exceptionally stable footing, which pretty much remains today.  Things were pretty lean back in the day following the disastrous decision to tender out mowing of the courses to the ''worm farmers'' as they were known and there had been some major upheaval in the clubhouse as well in the late nineties.  Phil was a hard but fair taskmaster and kept an incredibly tight grip on finances and the general management of the club but at the same time backed his managers to the hilt.  Vale Phil.

And a very happy lunchroom on Friday morning after a successful tip at the Mornington horse races on Thursday afternoon.  One of my nephews is a professional punter and he text me a tip for Thursday afternoon with the advice ''will open at around $20 and will come in a bit to probably $15 so a good each way bet''.  Well he got that part wrong as it drifted and depending on what State you backed it in paid anywhere between $27 and $30!!   I told the boys as they were about to leave and suggested that my nephew had only ever given me a handful of tips over his thirty year career as a successful punter, and that the few that I had got had never missed so they were all on it for a great result. 

Despite the slightly warmer temperatures the turf on both courses is still struggling after the effects of the floods and a long cloudy winter, not to mention the wear from golf carts.  The photo below is the buggy path leading to 18R fairway where it has been roped off for the past six weeks.  Despite being a heavily shaded area to turf has greened up and is in fairly reasonable condition with no golf cart traffic over this time.  The cart traffic is really doing some damag with many groups with four carts and just the sheer number of players going through the courses.  Most Fridays now have over five hundred players booked in which is staggering.

18R cart path.

It will be interesting to see what happens this year with the seasonal weather.  The Jacaranda tree I have been observing over the years flowered eight days later than last year and the Rainbow Bee Eater birds have appeared a week later than last year.  Another thing I monitor is when the fairway Couch throws up a seedhead and that happened one week earlier than last year.  I don't really know if any of it is related to turfgrass health but it's interesting to note.  What we really need is some real heat and sunny conditions.  I am not looking forward to the health of the turf if we do get the wet summer as predicted and the player levels and cart traffic continue as they have been.

And one of my favourite photos from a few years back from an avid bird photographer. 

Incoming meal.

 

I don't know if we should ever let Golf NSW near us ever again!!  That or the Tweed Coast Open is permanently jinxed.  We have tried to run the Tweed Coast Open about six times and rain has intervened each time.  In February this year we just got it done the day before the big flood and this week we were looking ok and got the Pro am in then whammo.  You can't really blame the weather bureau though as they forecasted Thursday's rain seven days earlier so we were well and truly prepared.

Part of that preparation was to solid tine the West greens on Tuesday to assist with moving water off the putting surface in the event of rain which worked a treat when the rain wasn't torrential.  The video below shows the greens being solid tined and the minimal effect on ball roll as a result. 

 

 

 

We only went about  75mm deep which was just enough to create a channel (see photo below) for the water to move through.  It also had the added bonus of getting some much needed oxygen to the rootzone as well.  All that benefit with no surface disruption. 

 

Aeration hole on the side of the hole.

But when you get the torrential downpour we got on Friday morning no green will sustain that amount.  This is 18W green at around 8.15am Friday morning.  Within five minutes of the rain easing it was bone dry which is a combination of the construction which allows the water to sheet off the green and aeration holes allowing the water to move through the surface.

 

18W green Friday morning in the rain.

 

 And as noted previously - it's never a good sign when the seagulls come onto the course!

 

Thursday morning this week.

We ''only'' received 140mm but by the look of the courses you would think there was 440 which is what fell in some parts of the hinterland and I trust any readers who live in the worst hit areas are safe and sound.  That 140mm takes us to a YTD rainfall total of 2336mm which is well on the way to beat the record of 3193mm for this location.  Let's hope we don't break the record or even come close to it.
 

I mentioned last week that 2R green was renovated and it had an almost immediate response.  This week we trimmed back the trees at the rear of the green and even though they are on the south side of the green the increase in light has been dramatic, not to mention the airflow.  This can only have a further positive effect on the green.  The photo below is at 4pm today.  Normally the green would be in full shade and very dark.  Unfortunately I didn't get a ''before'' photo but it's pretty obvious. 

Let there be light.

And speaking of trees, the photo below is not what you want to see at 4.45am on your morning rounds.  Fortunately the rain kept the players away so we had less traffic to deal with as we had to divert all cars on to 18W fairway to access the clubhouse while the clean up took place.  I had two staff members placed with ''stop / slow'' signs and three cars didn't even stop at the first checkpoint even though it was daylight.  Makes you wonder what they do on the roads?? 

A 5.20am phone call to our Bobcat contractor Trevor and his willingness to change the mornings plans and come and help clean up was a big bonus.  One of the reasons I always try and look after our contractors is for when we are in an hour of need.  Thanks Trevor.

Before.

During.

After.

 

A little bit of warmth in the sun late this week but still probably not enough to really make  it things happen although there is a lot of Couch greening up around the place but not really thickening up. 

We had to renovate 2R green this week as it was in very poor condition after being hammered last Saturday in the final round of the club championships. The green was so wet on Saturday morning that we weren't able to mow it and then a full field really took its toll on the playing surface in the rain. We gave it a 19mm hollow tine then added some amendments and gave it a good sanding with amended sand. The difference was noticeable almost overnight after we were able to get so much oxygen to the roots and dry the surface out. It would be nice to try and get the rest of the greens done but with the golf program coming up that doesn't suit and we still have about five weeks to the River course renovation.  The green is affected by shade and has very poor air circulation which prevents drying and is almost always the wettest of the River greens.  Only really having the one entry and exit spot doesn’t help things either with so much wear concentrated there.

I think I have already mentioned it on the blog but we are expecting to have a bumper crop of weeds come up this year following the floods. Other courses that have dirty”” floods have the same issue when so much seed bank gets deposited on the course.  We started this week with a pre-emergent herbicide application across 80% of the course and will finish that next week. We also started with some spot spraying to control some weeds in greens surrounds and fairways and some boom spraying around greens on the West course on Thursday. The River course will be done next week. 

Dye indicating areas spot sprayed.

Boom spraying around 14W.

 

 

 

Not a very promising forecast for the last round of the Club Champs tomorrow so hopefully it won't be as bad as forecast.  Although the forecast was correct for quite mild days and even milder nights this week so an application of fertiliser to the River greens has seen a surge of growth which they have desperately needed.  It is the first time for months that a fertiliser application has actually realised some real growth which isn't ideal coming into round four but very necessary for the health of the greens.

I have mentioned before about looking for signs elsewhere in nature for a turn in the weather and perhaps the re-appearance of sandflies this week might be one, albeit an annoying one.  Other's that I look for include when some of the common couchgrass varieties throw up their first seedhead and that also happened this week and Jacaranda's flowering but that is yet to occur yet.

I have had a couple of members ask about the soil moisture meter that I mentioned last week. The meters have been around for some time and are a very good tool to use in greens management in particular, and they are one of only a few actual physical measurements that can be taken on golf greens. Every soil profile varies in its make up and therefore it's moisture holding capacity so there is no actual ‘’official’’ number that you need to get to. Generally most superintendents know the number that their greens need to be at and they also need to know the number where the greens will start to stress.  In our situation the greens sit somewhere between 20 and 25% and when they are dry and stressed they are down around about 10% and that is when you know that you need water. I generally try and keep them at about the 25% mark which isn't easy with the amount of rain that we get but even after significant rainfall the actual measurement is rarely more than 40% due to the drainage capacity of the profile.  Just out of interest, in the old Bentgrass days if the greens were under 30% at 6am on most summers days you knew that they would be severely heat stressed later in the day.

The photo below is of the crew prepping 10R for play last week for the Qld Championships.  Hopefully the weather holds and we get to do that tomorrow morning!!??

 

Let's hope it's fine?