A pretty uneventful week with low staff numbers due to some leave being taken restricting what we could do.  The River greens were fertilised on Tuesday and we got a slight burn as expected from foot and buggy wheel traffic.  Not too much of a concern as it will grow out as has happened on the West greens.  The colour response on the greens from the fertiliser application is clearly evident as is the surge in growth that has happened, particularly with the warmer sunny days.  Quite a bit of weed control across the courses with some spot spraying which is highlighted by the dye that is added to the brew and Kikuyu and Blue Couch has been selectively sprayed in fairways so there should be some gradual dis-colouration happening over the coming weeks.

Footprinting evident.

The dry conditions have meant a pretty big irrigation cycle going out last night which was the biggest we have done since the new system has been completed.  It ran like clockwork and it will take us some time to get up to speed with scheduling and program development.  Being able to operate the whole system from either phone, tablet or home computer is a dream.  Even though it was a windy night coverage looked excellent.  Unfortunately the treatment works where we source our irrigation water had an issue over the past week which has severely limited our supply but we are back up and running now.

Some tree work coming up next week with some trimming on a number of holes to help open up some play lines.  Depending on the day we might play a few holes short to ensure safety of the operator and staff.  The fairways will get a liquid fertiliser application and further weed control will be applied. 

The Walker Cup golf event was on last weekend and it gave an incredible peak at one of the most exclusive courses in the world, Cypress Point.  There were fairly severe restrictions (club imposed I believe) on what could be shown which was a shame as it's an incredible site that last held a PGA tournament in 1990, for reasons I won't go into here. One of the things that I noticed was that there was no "mowing stripes" visible apart from the greens.  It amazes me how some golfers associate quality with striping when most of the best courses in the world don't do it.  I was lucky enough to play Cypress way back in 1988 and there were certainly no stripes then nor at neighbouring Pebble Beach but the quality of design and turf were certainly there.   Not sure if you can read the following but they are some pretty rigid "suggestions" which I would suggest are pretty well enforced!!

Suggestions?