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.