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?