Tuesday this week made it five days since Christmas eve without rain being recorded which is as amazing as it is frustrating.  At least we did get some heat early in the week but are still desperate for some serious sunlight.  Talking to several fellow Supers this week and everyone is pretty much in the same boat but our rainfall regularity and volume dwarfs most other clubs.

The course closure this afternoon for club champs preparation allowed us to get a dry de-thatch and mow on the River greens which as I have said before is a huge advantage.  It gives the machine the opportunity to work properly and by that I mean it can pull out an amazing amount of dead plant material from near the surface of the green. The picture below shows the quality of the job with barely a green leaf in sight - just mostly dead and decaying leaf matter.

Lots of dead leaf matter.

The photo below shows the de-thatching unit that fits on the ride on triplex greens mowers we use.  The blades are only set at ground level in our situation and the weight of the unit means we get about 1.5mm - 2mm of penetration which shows just how much dead material is in that zone.

Tungsten tipped blades make a very fine cut.

 

Unfortunately the strong winds are predicted to persist through the weekend so the courses are going to be pretty messy with the amount of debris blowing down from the trees.  Just getting the playing surfaces clean enough to mow is a challenge in itself.  Coolangatta Tweed players have a reputation for being good wind players so the weekend sets up as a great test.