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. 😥