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!!