The heat continues and so does the growth.  I can't remember us having so much scalping happening on the fairways in particular, which is an indication that the growth regulator that has been applied is struggling to keep up.  We have also had a number of applications affected by unforeseen rain following within a couple of hours which doesn't help with the correct application process.  It took nearly three weeks after Christmas for us to get the tees where we needed them to be to prevent scalping on them and the fairways are finally nearly there now.  The weird part about a golf course is that in three months time I will be bemoaning the fact that we need more grass!!

In the photo below it is a misapplication of growth regulator that has caused the area indicated to be scalped due to not enough overlap but given the lack of scalp surrounding the area it shows how valuable the growth regulator is in presenting a surface. 

Misapplication shown up.

 

9R green is ready for planting next Tuesday with some final amendments added this week.  The green has still been irrigated over the past week to help prevent any erosion from wind.  Establishment of the green after planting is one aspect of course maintenance that will really enjoy the hot humid conditions to ensure rapid growth.

The decision has been made to utilise the sand stockpiled on the short range to convert the flat target green in the middle of the range to a properly formed green.  This will serve two purposes allowing for more ''course like feel'' when practising your short game and the green will also be able to be used as an extra green when needed if a regular hole needs to be out of play for some reason.  There will be some weed contamination evident from this sand as it has come straight from 9R green which was heavily contaminated but it will be overplanted with TifEagle to try and recreate the feel of a normal green.  This isn't easy to do due to the massive amount of traffic that the practice putting and short range greens receive. 

Weather permitting (read dry) we will also be using the material stockpiled down to the left of 9R green to build some fairly rudimentary target greens on the long range.  Due to the regular inundation of salt water on this range the greens will be ''push up'' in nature and are really as mentioned, target greens, with a flag in them to assist with players practice regimes.