Another pretty accurate forecast from the weather bureau this week although they did miss with the volume of rain.  142mm all up for the week with 135 of that falling in about nine hours on Wednesday night.  Safe to say it didn't help with our Club Champs preps.  But full credit once again to the crew with the way they turned the courses around on Friday with Thursday virtually being a write off.  The short week after the public holiday didn't help much either.  A day like Thursday with no play does give us a chance to do a couple of jobs that are difficult to do in play and that was to hang two new practice nets and edge the paths on the West course with the paths being about the only dry thing out there!!  Some machine prep for the upcoming River course greens renovation was also done which is a very time consuming job.

A couple of shots below to demonstrate the volume of water that was out on the courses.  The photo across 18W and R was at 6pm Wednesday after only 60mm so there was another 70 dumped on top after that.  The other photo is of 12W fairway.  The main drain that drains this fairway was completely covered with debris not allowing the water to move but again just shows the volume of water that was there.

Looking across 18W & R from the entry road.

12W fairway early Thursday morning.

I had a very enjoyable break with some really good weather throughout but arrived back to the mess that was left after the cyclonic conditions that an east coast low weather system can, and did produce.  To get the course back to where it is today after what confronted us on Monday morning (photos below) is a credit to the crew despite some more very windy days making the clean up extremely difficult and frustrating.  Dads Army did an almighty job stick picking the rough areas on Tuesday and removed a huge amount of debris to allow us to continue mowing.  The bunkers literally become leaf collectors and a huge amount of time and effort is devoted to them to restore playability.

16R fairway bunker full of leaves.

18R fairway with turf barely visible.

Elsewhere on the courses things have ticked along really well and the irrigation install continues with 19 holes now completed.  The new pump set has been delivered and we are currently waiting on some approvals from our electricity supplier for the install to be completed.  Meanwhile next week we will be moving to 15W for the next hole install.  An upcoming forecast of dry warm weather will allow us to really put the new system to the test, however until the new pump set is installed and all the larger diameter pipe is online it is difficult to really see the benefits.  One of the main challenges we have had so far is to keep both the new and old systems operating side by side but so far we have done very well.

Unfortunately while I was away one of the crew decided to return home to Ireland after working with us for the past ten months.  Simon was a proficient greenkeeper who will hopefully one day return to our shores for another stint with us.  A couple of months ago I was contacted by a Spanish greenkeeper who is currently third in charge at Golf Club Crans-sur-Sierre in Crans-Montana Switzerland, where they host the Omega European Masters each year.  He is keen to come to Australia to work for three months while their course is closed for the ski season.  I was able to meet with him during my travels and have confirmed employment for him for three months from December.  Short term accommodation is scarce so if any followers have some temporary lodgings available it would be most appreciated and you could leave some details with the front office.  

October is Club Championship time for the men so hopefully the weather behaves and we can produce some good playing conditions for the competitors.  October is a notoriously windy month so here's hoping we get some good days coming up.

 

Pretty accurate sign??

                              

This amazing run of weather continues and we have had to actually apply some growth regulator to the River fairways this week and the West fairways will be done next week along with the tees on both courses.  We have never applied growth regulator before in August and the application in September is normally to just control seedhead.  Even the heavily shaded 4R tee has shown some recovery.  Let's hope it continues because as I mentioned last week it is essential for us to have a very healthy sward of turf given the cart and player numbers we experience.

But no matter how good your turf is you won't beat players who decide to practice from the middle of the fairway on 16R or drive stupidly in a shaded weak turf area at the start of 11R.

At least they tried to sand some of them.

??

The irrigation install continued this week with most of 15R being completed.  The contractors didn't work on Friday due to the GC show day so they will be back next week.  And next week we start the installation of a new power supply to the new pump shed which will require a substantial trench to be dug across 16, 14 and 13W fairways.  Some of the conduit was delivered this week and we did some ''potholing'' to locate some of the various services that we need to cross including the town water supply to the clubhouse and the NBN cabling amongst others.  Play on some of these holes will be affected with some temporary tees required to ensure the safety of staff and contractors.  The new pump set is also due to be delivered next week along with its control board for it.  We have selected Grundfos pumps which is the same as our current set which was installed in 2000 and has barely missed a beat.

I will be on some R&R for three weeks from next Thursday so the blog will take a break for the same period.  Till then...... 

I don't think I have ever seen this much grass on the courses in August ever before.  To actually see scalping happening Is certainly a first in August.  It comes in pretty handy though with the amount of play we are having given the excellent weather this week with another 500 plus day today by the looks of it.  You certainly need to have good turf to be able to survive the cart and golf traffic.  It's a good problem to have and not one that I thought we would see this year given how wet we were earlier.

The irrigation installation continued this week with a large main line being laid on 15R And part of the fairway being installed.  15R will obviously continue next week and we then move to 16R.  Next week we will be doing some exploratory digging to find some of the services on 13, 14 and 16W as the following week we will be installing a new power supply from near 16W tee all the way to the pump shed.  This will be quite a major excavation and play on all three holes will be affected that week.  The weather forecast for the next couple of weeks is apparently quite good so hopefully the courses may dry out enough for us to actually start using the new system once again.

Not exactly the week we were looking for but once again the weather bureau were pretty much spot on and there was plenty of warning.  We actually took the first 100mm pretty well as we were so dry and the water table was low but the next 50mm really hurt with some of the West fairways in particular as wet as they can be.  At least upstream in the Tweed River didn't get as much so the river level stayed quite normal.  And then just when we thought it was gone on Friday a nasty little cell seemed to develop rapidly moving in from the west right on top of us but fortunately only a light shower resulted.

Looked nasty but fizzled.

 

We took the advantage of no play on Monday and Tuesday to get the greens on both courses solid tine aerated.  The tines we used are a 6.3mm (or .25 inch) diameter and they penetrate about 100mm when new.  This allows for great air exchange in the top surface of the green with little or no disruption to play.

The irrigation contractors decided to not start on 15R due to the forecast and it turned out a wise decision.  The forecast for next week looks much better so hopefully we get a good run and finish off both 15 and 16R in the next three weeks.  15 is a deceptively large fairway so will take quite a bit of time.

I ran into this fellow on Tuesday morning and I'd say he had a full belly as he wasn't interested in moving out of the way too quickly.  It's a while since I've seen a Tawny Frogmouth so it's nice to know they are still out there.

Didn't want to move.

 

 

A few showers to end the week dropped nearly 8mm on us which, dare I say, was quite welcome.  I doubt it was welcome for the Vets WOG though as the early starters on Thursday got a bit wet.  I'm not sure how long this event has been running but I can only recall one day when rain fell for most of the day so an early morning shower certainly didn't do much damage.  Another mainly sunny week as well so hopefully the players enjoyed the courses.

With 6.52am multi tee starts and / or shotguns it doesn't allow us much time to prep the courses in front of them but we do our best and it's fortunate that it is played at this time of year when there is little or no growth.  And on the topic of course preps, the speed that the first groups often play at has an effect on what prep we can get done for a competition field, when all greens mowing and hole changing needs to be completed in front of the first group.  The first groups out, regularly play in under three hours and if they come out as a two or three ball, they are even faster.  A Superintendent friend of mine in Florida at a very high end country club actually introduced timings for where the first group out can play to at allocated times, so to allow adequate time for course preps.  I often say that you can have a 5.30am shotgun but don't expect much prep work to get done before tee off.

The resistant Poa annua continues to baffle but at least we are getting some signs of control as I spoke with quite a few fellow Supers this week who are still getting no result.  There is even a turf farm in Victoria who has resorted to spraying Roundup at five times the rate that is considered ''safe'' on fairway Couch.  Another photo below this time from 11R green, with some dead Poa circled with some very healthy plants boxed less than 300mm away.

A conundrum??

 

Another progressive week on the irrigation install with a huge amount of work done on 11W despite no sprinklers actually going in the ground.  A specialist pipe welder was onsite to join up some of the lengths of 160 and 200mm pipe and it was quite an impressive operation to see. Due to the cost of bringing this operator and machine onsite, a large amount of pipe was welded and has been stored in the rough areas of the courses until it is needed. Another temporary connection to the old system was also completed, this time joining into some 150mm pipe on the RHS of the fairway. 

The Poa annua (Wintergrass) control in the greens has been interesting this year compared to last.  Last winter / spring we got virtually no result but this year has seen a turn in our fortunes with some success, although not consistently.  We have had an excellent result on the River greens and a not so good on the West although there is still some result evident  An interesting photo below from 10R green where a potentially resistant plant in the square box looks relatively unharmed by our applications whereas the circled plants are as dead as you could want them.  On the West course I mentioned a while back that we have been given a product free of charge to trial and we used that on 5 and 6W greens which were the most infested last year.  It has now been applied three times with limited success although at the higher rate on 5W the plants are definitely thinner and less vigorous.  It's still a work in progress and it's one of the great things about the job that you never stop learning.  

2 dead plants and 1 not so?