The week got off to a great start when we were able to get West greens mini renovation completed on Monday afternoon and Tuesday. The Greens received a deeper than normal de-thatch followed by 100mm deep solid tine aeration, and then a sanding.  It was just what they needed to allow for some good air exchange and levelling with the River greens receiving the same treatment next week.  The video below shows the perfect ball roll immediately after the sand was rubbed in and the rain late in the week just topped them off.

The River fairways had four tonne of fertiliser applied to them on Thursday morning in front of the rain so at least the rain was good for something.  Unfortunately the Vets were playing an ambrose event and we couldn't get them all done in front of play so 2, 13 and 18 will have to wait which is a shame as it would be nice for them to all be on the same timeframe.

And speaking of rain we picked up 68mm for the week which was very much needed and apart from Friday didn't really ineterfere wit golf to any degree. 

One of the very necessary jobs that we do that players don't get to see is the machinery maintenance that goes on in the shed.  Craig Plowman is our mechanic and does an extraordinary job almost single handedly keeping our fleet operational.  We are lucky to have a fairly modern fleet but the range of servicing and repair work is quite extensive and ranges from hydraulics, auto electrics, diesel and petrol engines, not to mention cylinder mowers that need to be set to mow greens at 3mm.  To assist in the greens mower set up we have a grinder that helps sharpen the cylinders after new bedknives (baseplates) are fitted as they were this week to the West mowers.  That takes Craig and an assistant a total of 16 man hours to remove and replace the bedknives and grind them.

 

Our reel grinder and a greensmower head.

 

A very nice 38mm of rain on Tuesday night with some very heavy showers meaning we may not have got full benefit but it was very timely indeed.  We are still having some issues at the treatment plant and still not receiving the full amount of water possible so the occasional downpour is most welcome.  We are getting some extreme growth though which I really don't think we have had over the past two wet cooler summers so keeping up with the mowing has been a challenge.

We dodged a very big bullet this week when we were de-thatching the West greens.  The last area we do is the nursery green adjacent to 17R fairway and as the operator put the heads down on the first run a hydraulic hose blew and oil poured onto the surface which will ultimately kill the turf.   It was also fortunate that another operator was just behind him and alerted him to the leak and he was able to get off the green ASAP.  Ten minutes earlier and it would have been all over 18W green.

Over the next few years we will be upgrading our greens mower fleet to the ''hybrid'' variety and will no longer have the hydraulic hose risk.

The dark area is the oil.

 

We were finally able to get some sand onto the new turf on 4R fairway this week to start the levelling process so that should really help fine up the surface as well.  There are a number of irrigation repair areas that we will be cutting out and re-levelling / turfing in the next few weeks too.

Heavy sanding @ 4R fairway.

 

Weather permitting next Tuesday we will be giving the West greens a mini renovation   The plan is for a deeper than usual de-thatch followed by some sand and followed up with a solid tine aeration using 6mm ''needle'' tines so surface disruption will be at a minimum.

More issues with irrigation water supply this week after a significant algal bloom developed on the storage pond we pump from and our pumps keep sucking it in.  With irrigation water supply not guaranteed and certainly severely reduced we have only been irrigating greens and selected tees this week.  Some rain would be most welcome at the moment.

I often mention the growth regulator we use and in the latest application to the River fairways we had a blocked nozzle.  The nozzles are located under a shroud to protect them from wind but the operator can't see them and therefore doesn't know if one or more are blocked.  We check them at the start of spraying and it is very rare for them to block once spraying has commenced.  The photo below just shows how effective the product is with the line from the blocked nozzle apparent but what is more apparent is the scalped turf that didn't receive the growth regulator.  I think I have said it before but I don't know what I would do without it.

Scalped turf all along the nozzle line.

 

The recent fertiliser applications coupled with some excellent growing weather have certainly got the grass growing.  The photo below is of 4R tee with about the least amount of shade it receives all year and fully grassed.  If only it stayed like this year round.  

4RT looking good.

 

Some more welcome rain this week but again the bulk of it ran off such was the ferocity of it.  The amount of wash around the courses on Wednesday morning was pretty amazing and the damage caused meant that it must have been some of the heaviest rain we could get.  Rainfall figures around the Northern Rivers varied pretty wildly so there were obviously some very heavy cells moving around.  We picked up 42mm but I reckon the holes along the River got way more than that.  The damage in the bunkers cost us eighty man hours in repair time (and we're not finished yet) which given the amount of grass needing to be mown wasn't ideal.  The rain was quite timely though as the supply of our irrigation water from the treatment plant was stopped due to power issues at their end.  I can only recall three other times when our water supply has been halted which is a pretty good run.

I wrote last week about two of the biggest problems in greens management in Australia being Poa resistance and the ERI disease complex, and that they certainly are.  But in the November issue of Australian Golf Digest the editorial by Brad Clifton was titled ''It's time to talk about - and fix - golf's crisis.''  Brad referred to an article by Rohan Clarke in the same edition titled ''The crisis facing Australian golf''.  When I first read the headline I thought it was about LIV golf against the rest of the world and was surprised but happy that it highlighted a problem that has been brewing for some time but has really come to the fore over the past decade, as things in the golf course maintenance industry have become more and more dire.  

This is a link to the article;

https://t.co/Q0vYGn3WUU

The article has produced one of the biggest responses the editorial team have ever received, and it is this paragraph that is the most applicable to our situation;

''Furthermore, young people aren’t entering greenkeeping in sufficient numbers. Golf-course maintenance has traditionally been one of the lowest paid trades. These days, kids want a well-paid job straight out of school and aren’t willing to do the hard graft like previous generations.''

The turf management apprenticeship has always had one of the worst completion and retention rates of any trade and the award wage for a trade qualified greenkeeper is one of the lowest around.  Of the 18 apprentices that have been employed in my time here only 4 are still in the industry working on golf courses, and they are the two recently completed and two new apprentices that are part of the crew at the moment.  All the others have left the industry.  There have been 135 staff employed on course at Cool Tweed in the past 24 years and in that illustrious group there have been 51 turf qualified personnel.  36 of those have left the industry with only 8 others moving to other golf clubs and there are 7 qualified on the current crew.  

I agree it doesn't take too much nous to sit on a mower and lots of golfers refer to groundstaff as steering wheel attendants.  But when you are dealing with modern plant protectant products that can have an application rate of 10 grams per hectare, you need to know what you are doing. Similarly when you are maintaining and operating a $150K fairway mower (yes that's what they cost now) you also need to know what you are doing.  It's a bit like NRL referees - everyone is very critical of them (as golfers are of groundstaff) and what they do - but without them you haven't got a game.

And on a lighter note.  I thought some of the drives at Cool Tweed were tight.

Not much room.

But if you think outside the box there are a few options depending on your ball flight!!

An opening for just about anyone?!