Well after a monumental two weeks we made it and I can't believe what has been achieved in that time.  Players tomorrow will find the courses in pristine condition, with all but a few pockets of rough not mown.  The only downside is the 200+ stumps that are out there!!  There's still grinding of the green waste that was stockpiled over near 6R to go and that will continue for a few days then it's the stump removal to come.

It couldn't have been achieved without the efforts of CTHGC grounds crew and the awesome contractors who all pulled together and worked in sync as a great team.  To Graham Dewitt and his awesome team from GDE Tree Services, Chicka and Trevor King and Pete McConnell, a heartfelt thanks from me for coming to our aid when you could well have gone anywhere else following TCAlfred.  Thanks also to the great group of volunteers early this week and to the members for putting up with just 9 holes while we went about the works.  Also thanks to the Club Board and Management for their support.

And while it doesn't quite match the lyrics of Jackson Browne's ''The load out"" song, it seemed an appropriate thought as Graham's crew packed their gear up to head on home to Brisbane and beyond after spending two weeks of their lives at Coolie Tweed.

The load out - packed up and heading home.  Thanks again!!

 

Another half a dozen trees have ''popped'' meaning their root ball has been exposed which quite possibly happened in yesterdays gusty southerly change.  To be honest I thought some more trees would have come down in that wind but there were no more on the ground this morning.  I did an audit of stumps today with our main tree contractor and there were 192 so we will top 200 comfortably.  

We are progressing very well and thanks to the member volunteers the West course will tidy up very quickly.  We just have to pick up the literally 100's of piles they left for us which is a huge bonus so thanks again.

Just one of the piles from the vollies!!

The carpark is certainly getting full and we started transporting the mulch off property today and did a little grinding of the massive amount of green waste and logs that have come off the courses.  It's been a great team effort between our staff and the contractors and there is definitely light at the end of the tunnel. 

First load of mulch being loaded.

 

If you had told me last Saturday that there would be 9 holes open for play tomorrow I would have laughed out loud.  

The effort by the crew and contractors this week has been nothing short of extraordinary.

I just hope players appreciate that when they play this weekend.

 

Let's not forget that this is where we were 4 days ago with over 100 huge trees on the ground.

Just 4 days ago.

 

Another good day and the goal of opening the front nine River on Saturday will be achieved.  1 and 9R are still very wet but you wouldn't know anything else happened on the rest of the holes.  We have no irrigation water which I am hoping will be resolved tomorrow.  If we don't resolve the issue and have no water over the weekend, then we will not be mowing greens to save that stress on the plant.  But at least you will be playing some golf.

We built a temporary road across the start of 16W fairway so the heavy machinery can access the course.  Depending on what it looks like after we have finished, we may even leave it there as this is a much used access point to the courses.

Not quite the M1 but it will work.

Another issue that has happened with the trees is that some of them have ''popped'' meaning they have started to fall and their roots have come out of the ground.  This means they are unsafe and need removal.  That means a further 25 trees thus far, so at this stage we are approaching 150 trees down.  And none of them are small.  The top photo shows the root of this one exposed and also the slant of the tree and the bottom photo shows a close up of the tear in the root  

The slant of the tree and raised root are evident.

The arrowed area above.

 

 

Another productive day on the Alfred clean up with some safety issues being addressed in addition to the continued clean up.  The group of trees on RHS 2W tee that came down were caught up in neighbouring trees some 5 - 10 metres off the ground, which is a serious safety hazard.  There are a number of these around the courses and several of those were dropped to ground level today.  The photo below shows the group of trees before and then a short video of them crashing safely to the ground.

RHS 2W tee caught up.

 

Coming down.

Down.

At the start of the week our goal was to get the front nine of the River course in play by the end of the week and we will achieve that by Friday night which has been a monumental effort by the crew and our contractors, who have simply all gone above and beyond.  Not so sure of a timeline for the back nine River though, as 15, 16 and 18R have some of the biggest material on the ground of the whole property.  As previously mentioned due to the weight of the machines they need to be on a hardstand surface and there's precious little hardstand anywhere on the back nine River.

A really good day today with an incredible amount of material moved and mulched.  Two of the biggest trees to come down to the RHS 4W tee were among those done today.  Due to the weight of the machines they have to stay on hardstand areas and we ferry the trees to them for processing through the wood chippers.  We are also carting some material away when it is quicker to dump the material.  We have created 3 new dumping areas, one of which is in the main carpark and this material will be mulched after we finish on the courses.

The carpark traffic flow will be altered to allow us enough room to use the area as a dump site so please take care and follow signage when driving through the carpark.  There will be tippers of all sizes accessing the area so please also take care when they are in the area.

Two of the biggest to come down gone.

 

We do still have a golf course to maintain even though it's not being prepped for play.  Some of the crew got back to some greenkeeping today and that will continue over the coming days with the crew split between storm clean up and course maintenance.  It took 4 crew most of the day to get the greens clear of debris post TC Alfred and ready for their first mow for a week tomorrow.

All greens on both courses blown off today.

 

We only had 3 contractors on site today working on the tree program which was pretty good given life has barely returned to normal following TC Alfred.  It will vary day to day depending on prior commitments that they have had which sometimes have been booked for months. We are lucky to have such loyal companies that come to us first when we need them, as you could imagine there is a lot of work out there. Tomorrow we should move a lot faster with 6 contractors onsite but it is going to be a very, very long road, taken day by day.

The photo below shows the tree that was uprooted but leaning against other trees on RHS 3W, which was removed today.  This particular type of removal is slow and painstaking and potentially dangerous.  One contractor group concentrated on these today and removed 5 of them.  The other contractors worked on LHS 9W in front of our maintenance facility so we have access to the courses.

 

Uprooted but dangling.

 

RHS 3W down.

Given how wet the courses are following the rainfall associated with Alfred, they probably would have been closed for a week due to the flooding and it is now difficult to get the required heavy machinery around the courses.  The first goal we have is to try and get the front nine of the River course cleared and playable ASAP.

Just a quick update as I'm a little busy at the moment. 

The photos really don't do the tree damage justice.  There are now nearly 100 trees uprooted.  There are probably another 100 with crown damage which will most likely need removal and at least 50 that have started to lean and the root ball is exposed so they are going to come down at some stage so will need to be removed.  And that's without doing a proper assessment tree by tree which will be needed.

The first contractors were on site yesterday and others are arriving today to start the mammoth clean up.  214mm of rain in the 24 hours to 9am Monday hasn't helped and there will be a lot of turf damage as we complete the clean up.  We have now had 632mm since it started raining last Wednesday.  The river has come over but that was only just on this mornings high tide.  The internal flooding remains as the water just has nowhere to go.

11R fairway Monday morning.

1 & 9R fairways Monday morning.

 

 

Once again I trust all blog followers have survived TC Alfred.  The system was certainly erratic with the distribution of damage but our local community seems to have been some of the worst hit.  I was speaking with Murwillumbah Course Super Brian Cox this morning and he said they barely have a branch down, but are within 30cms of flooding.  Luck of the draw I guess.

Out on the golf courses and the only positive is that all infrastructure is still in place at the moment.  The clubhouse, buggy shed, 1/2 ways, Pro Shop and our maintenance shed are all in tact and seemingly secured.

The same can't be said for the courses.  A further 50 trees were uprooted overnight adding to yesterday's 40.  Yes you read that right.  And I am not talking small trees either.

There is still a lot of internal water on the courses that can't drain off and the river was still well below breaking its banks this morning.  But to be honest the water is the least of our concerns.  How we are going to move these trees is a mind boggling problem given the sheer scale of the task.

The first contractor will be onsite Sunday morning to clear Davey Street so we can access our shed and then look at the Clubhouse access road.

 

LHS 9W near sand bins.

RHS 3W green fell toward 4R fway.

Another "hanger" RHS 3W.

Rear 1W green.

RHS 18R was down yesterday but this shows the enormous size of it.

RHS 16W tee near entry road.

Fr LHS 11W tee.

LHS 13W fway just past access track.

RHS 9W fway looking toward 4W tee.

 

 

 

 

I trust followers of the blog who are located in the path of TC Alfred are safe and sound as we wait out the final 18 hours or so.....hopefully that's all that's left.

I got to the course this morning and I don't really know what word is best to describe what I saw.  Carnage, comes to mind so I think I will stick to that.  I was able to get to almost all the property and it is just unbelievable.  There are 40 trees totally uprooted and none of them are small.  There are probably another 100 that are damaged to the extent that they will need to be removed.  There's a few photos below to show the magnitude of what happened.

On a positive note, all club infrastructure as far as I could see was still there and seemingly undamaged.  All roofs seem in tact and although the clubhouse lost power for a time this morning it was restored quite quickly.  Energex had a crew there clearing branches off power lines on the entry road and Tweed SC were in to fix a ruptured 100mm town water main.  It all happens at once it seems!

There is a lot of water on the courses but the River was about a metre below where it normally first comes over on this mornings ''low tide''.  Unfortunately tonight's forecast rain and wind may present an even worse scenario tomorrow.

RHS 9W not quite down yet.

RHS 2W tee.  There's actually 3 trees here.

Rear 11R tee.

LHS 5W fway.

Same photo as above but with another massive one arrowed behind.

Between 4 and 10W.  3 down here too.

 

RHS 7R tee just missing still functional old irrigation controller.

 

Some of the photos don't really do the size of the trees justice so here's one that's down RHS 4W tee.

 

They're huge!

The 12W fairway project dominated the week with a successful completion of the earthworks stage of the project today.  A lot of planning has gone into the works and getting the irrigation installed today capped off what has been a significant amount of scheduling.  On excavating the bunkers we found virtually no drainage in them and what was there was obviously not functional.  The turf arrives on Monday so hopefully we can get it down before the forecast rain arrives.  Due to the works covering the entire width of the fairway the hole will remain closed to play until the turf has started to establish and can withstand some cart traffic.

As Bill Lawry would say ''it's all happening on 12W.''

We have been fighting the Crowsfoot across all areas of the courses as has every course in SE Qld / N Rivers and one of the products has failed miserably.  It looks like we might be getting some resistant plants as where it was sprayed on 9W fairway has had a great result but barely a stones throw away on 4R fairway it has barely touched it.  The advantage of this product is the lack of leaf burn and therefore dis-colouration that you get but enough is enough and we went out today with a stronger brew that will see some leaf burn in the coming days.

February 28 is a day that is etched in my mind when the biggest flood to ever hit the course came to town in 2022.  In many ways it seems way more than three years and yet I doubt I will ever forget some of the scenes that confronted us in the ensuing days.  A bit of a pictorial reminder below.

Entry Road.

Short range.

Pushing sludge off short range the next day.

7R green arrowed left and pot bunker 6R on right.

1R green.  Flagstick still standing!!

Tif PPG high tide mark.

Rear bunker 1R.

 

Our ''body surfers''

It's hard to imagine the trauma the cows went through on their ride down from the other side of Murwillumbah.  It was a bit of a light moment when we were discussing how we were going to round them up as they were pretty traumatised.  The young girl with the farmers suggested she bring her horses in to which I replied ''Yeah...Nah.''!!

A couple of light showers during the week but after what we have had it was definitely classified as a dry one.  The courses look totally different without the pools of water about the place blue skies and bunkers dry and in play.  Unfortunately the threat of not having an operational  irrigation system for a couple of days after some serious pipe issues earlier in the week meant that the planned mini renovation of the West greens couldn't be done on Tuesday although we did get an edge and a de-thatch in while the course was closed.

Speaking of bunkers there were lots of comments on social media last week about the bunkers at Grange GC in Adelaide for LIV golf after Ian Poulter, among others, put up a photo of a razor sharp bunker lip.  A couple of members from CTH put their two cents worth in the comments as well with most experts lamenting how bad the bunkers are on their own mud heap, as Alister MacKenzie always referred to a golfers home course.  Bunkers are simply money pits and in an exercise that was done a few years ago here at CTH, we found that we actually spend more money on bunkers than greens - as do most clubs - and they are a hazard.  And to be honest the way most players swing at a bunker shot they are never going to be any good out of them.  Given that Grange had a crew of 57 for the event and only two were allocated to mowing greens, I would suggest that the ''bunker crew'' may have numbered 20 for the week.  It's also a shotgun start so they would have had 5 hours to prep the bunkers prior to play and with some of the best players in the world, the bunkers don't get a whole lot of use.  And then there are only 54 players.  Come back to the average Friday at CTH and we have 450 - 500 players then on Saturday morning a ''bunker crew'' of 2 have about 3 hours to prep the damage from the day before.

Next week we start work on the wet area on 12W so the hole will be closed to play.  The area will have turf removed, sand imported, drainage assessed and some re-shaping of the fairway to allow water to move off the area to some collection pits.  Two bunkers will be removed and the one closest the green properly drained. The area will then be re-turfed on Monday March 3.  

The irrigation contractors are still working on 18R but will then move to 12W late next week to install the new irrigation following the earthworks. 

Another week and another downpour of rain which is getting more and more frustrating as we fall further behind in our work schedule.  85mm was the weeks total but at least it wasn't accompanied by destructive wind this time but heavens it's wet out there.  It seems that just as we dry out we get slammed again and it's getting annoying.  The only good thing about the rain was that we had no water supplied this week from the treatment plant which is a very rare occurrence as there was an issue at the plant.  We were actually budgeting water earlier in the week but that certainly changed around.

We were able to get a mini renovation done on the River greens on Tuesday with a solid tine and sanding getting done. The greens have come back quite nicely and very little of the sand got washed off the greens as has happened several times in the past.  It gave us the opportunity to give our recently acquired aerating machines a run and as there predecessors had done, they were faultless.  It's one of the big advances in the greenkeeping industry.  In my early days aerating machines were prone to constant failure and breakdown but no more and that's a great thing.  Manuel, our Spanish intern, was at the controls of one of the machines and his lines were perfect as demonstrated in the video below.  He leaves us next week and it has been a pleasure hosting him and hopefully he may return one day to escape the winter snow in Switzerland where he works at the moment.

 

The plan is to do a mini renovation on the West greens next Tuesday.  We will be pulling a small diameter core on them as they haven't been cored for over two years and are desperate for it.

LIV golf once again descends on Adelaide this week and the course looks superb once again.  The Grange is a 36 hole facility and their normal crew of 32 (yes that's right) is bolstered by 25 volunteers for the week.  They were nervous about having a February date given the strong possibility of 40 degree days occurring but have a low 20's forecast so they will be relieved about that.  Not only are their staff numbers at the other end of the spectrum compared to us, nearby Adelaide Oval has had 37mm of rain since the start of November, against our 1325mm (yes that's right) or just on 53 inches. 😥

Almost a week of normal greenkeeping maintenance for a change and not having to worry about wild storms.  The rain that came through on Tuesday was enough to disrupt a lot of plans though.  Most Tuesdays one course is closed to allow us some player free maintenance time which is a huge bonus with what we can get done.  Unfortunately sanding 18W fairway and sanding the River greens were both postponed yet again due to the rain on Tuesday morning.  At this stage the plan is for the River greens to be solid tine aerated and sanded during next Tuesdays closure which will allow for some much needed air to get into the rootzone.  The following Tuesday is the West greens turn and they will get a ''mini renovation'' as we will be using a small diameter hollow tine which means a core will be removed.  The greens haven't been cored in over two years with weather playing havoc with the normal renovation.  This one won't be too invasive so no long term putting green surface disruption but it will give them some thatch / organic matter reduction and some air into the rootzone.

18W fairway has come along really well and has worked a treat in the several downpours we have had since finishing.  There is a wet spot in the middle where the Bobcat had some issues on the final trim so we will be putting a drainage line through this area to dry it up. 

The irrigation install continues with both 12 and 18W greens being installed this week.  But more excitingly, the suction line for the pump station was installed.  This needed a Franna crane to pick it up and lower it through the pump shed roof into the well.  We are utilising the existing well in the old pump shed and it all fitted seamlessly and the foot valve now sits five metres below the shed floor surface.  So we're not far from the new pump shed coming on line.

The foot-valve circled.

 

 

 

Just a few small piles of tree debris left out on the courses after a huge effort by staff, volunteers and contractors. We have had storms of this size before but when you have three in a week and two of them as severe as they were it becomes extraordinary.  Hopefully we are now past the worst of them although some of the long range forecasts are not good with respect to potential rainfall over the next three months.  At the moment I am actually back to planning some greenkeeping tasks next week rather than having half the crew dedicated to storm clean up.  I don't like to individualise, but the bunker restoration crew deserve the biggest pat on the back.  As I mentioned two weeks ago, we had just restored them and then bang it all happened again.  Shovelling sand in mid 30 degrees heat in a bunker where it is probably 10 degrees hotter is not the most pleasant task but they got it done and all bunkers are now back in play.

I put a photo up last week of the huge tree that came down on 14R and as I said the photo doesn't do it justice. I forgot I took the photo below of my cart next to it which really demonstrates the size of it.

One of the biggest to ever come down on course.

A worrying week with power issues affecting our old existing on course irrigation controllers with three still not operational but we have got all greens operating which is most important.  The new system install continues with some of the mainline pipework laid this week close to the pump shed which isn't far from coming on line now which will make a huge difference to water distribution. 

18W fairway has settled in well and will receive a heavy sanding next week to assist with levelling the surface out.  Work on 12W fairway in its wet area has been planned and we are now waiting for a suitable time when the irrigation install, earthmovers and turf layers all come together for the job but at this stage it looks like the job will be completed and turf down by mid March.

I could probably just cut and paste what was written last Friday after another enormous effort by the crew in cleaning up the courses.  There's no doubt there was considerably more taken off the courses today.

Another added issue from this storm is that it has taken out 8 of the on course irrigation satellites on the old system after some sort of power surge that we are still trying to get to the bottom of.  We do now have irrigation water available after a couple of other issues that meant we couldn't pump.  Going in to a long weekend with no water wasn't a good prospect. 

And a gusty southerly change is forecast for tonight!!

The third storm in 7 days and I think this one was more severe and the damage is certainly worse than last week.  Only 38mm of rain but the damage as a result of the wind is significantly more with about 12 trees completely uprooted.

I heard a plane on a strange flight path then checked and it was going to Sydney but was going the wrong way!!  I then checked the radar and saw the front coming and realised why it was going the wrong way.  

A bit of deja vu for the crew with a rinse and repeat of last Friday amid the carnage on the courses.  Both courses will be closed on Friday to give us the best shot at the clean up and we should get the main turf playing areas on both courses cleaned.  Bunkers and roughs will need to wait.   If the courses were open to play, and even without carts, we would probably be lucky to get 9 holes done so closing is the best option.

A few pics from the courses after the storm.............

Never seen this flightpath before?

Just missed the satellite on 15/16R.

LHS 14R.

LHS 6W.

LHS 11R.

RHS 11W.

 

This weeks portrait!!