250mm or 10 inches of rain thus far in March is the story of the week.  There is water still standing in places on the courses that I haven't seen before and despite 2 warm sunny windy days, it persists.  The fairways were that wet this week that we decided to not mow them which only really happens the day it stops raining.  March is fast becoming our reliably wettest month as per the 10 year figures below; 

Rainfall figures for March lately;

2016   241mm

2017   405    Flood

2018   212

2019   323

2020   276

2021   781     Flood

2022   592     2 x Floods

2023   93

2024   255

2025   800     Cyclone

2026   250     And we are still soaking wet!!

 

The greenside bunker on 13R was filled in this week and we were able to complete this work as it is so dry up there although there is some tracking damage.  Unfortunately the rain once again scuppered our works schedule for this week which has been a constant this frustrating summer season.  A large number of planned jobs have had to be parked until next year as it's now getting a little late for turf to establish quickly and our contractors are extremely hard to get.  We were also able to get a couple of bare spots on 12 and 14R greens re-turfed.  

And no excuses to be late for your tee time with the Centenary Clock finally being installed adjacent to the short range.  My photography skills are somewhat lacking as it's hard to get a good photo in the mornings but take my word for it, it looks very impressive before daylight. 

  

I thought I heard a little rain overnight and when I checked and saw that the airport had 7mm on its site I thought all was good.  Got to work and saw water pooled at the back of the shed which indicated more than 7mm and found 35mm in the rain gauge and then toured the course to find it incredibly wet.  Got back to the shed and checked the weather station at the pump shed that has a rain catch can and it had recorded 45mm!!  Nowhere else had figures anywhere like it.  So if you came down from Tugun for a game (where only 2mm was recorded) that was why there were no carts allowed today.  The photo below shows the normally dry 14R fairway with water still lying on it this morning and the circled area shows how much water was lying on it when the rain was at its peak.

It takes a lot of rain for water to pool on 14R.

 

The huge player numbers we have been getting and the amount of wear evident on tees, particularly par 3's, has me a bit concerned for winter considering we are still in virtually peak growth time.  We have been constantly monitoring the tees for insect and disease and on Thursday got some granular fertiliser out on them in anticipation of the forecast rain.  They will probably get another couple of granular fertiliser applications in the coming weeks to boost them before winter.

Seemingly back to rain being the hot topic and the rain earlier in the week, whilst not massive, certainly caused some headaches.  The planned earthworks on 14 and 16W fairways had to be cancelled and will now probably not be re-scheduled until later in the year at best.  Coordinating machinery, turf, contractors and course availability is a major juggling act at best.  The sand that has been stockpiled at 16W car park will have to stay there until we can confirm another date.  There wasn't much rain as I said (for us anyway - 70mm on Monday and Tuesday) but I couldn't believe how wet the courses were and they stayed wet all week.  Even some of the normally dry fairways had water pooled on them late Tuesday after the rain.  Another 30mm on Friday afternoon hasn't been helpful either.

We were also hoping to get a mini renovation done on the West greens during the course closure on Monday and Tuesday but sadly that was washed away too.  The temperatures are starting to drop slightly and it's now too risky to be doing too much renovation type work to the greens in case they can't grow out of it. 

Water pooled on 2R fairway - most unusual.

The fuel situation Australia is currently experiencing is certainly a concern for us.  Most of our larger mowers operate on diesel with most greensmowers and hand implements using ULP.  To give an idea of what we use; 

• a greensmower uses about 6L per mow ( 4 go out most days),
• a tees mower 10L per cut,  
• a fairway mower 30L a day,
• a rough cutter 25L a day,
• the surrounds mowers 50L a day,
• fairway blowers 40L a day,
• plus hand tools, Gators, snippers, backpack blowers and so on…. 

Our supplier advised last week we may not get any ULP and diesel would be if and when possible.  So it was a very pleasant sight to see the fuel truck in the compound with both types of fuel on board earlier this week.

Most welcome!!

 

And I don't think any more rakes in bunkers will make any difference out there.  This was 9W greenside last Saturday morning where about 20 shots had been played and they deftly avoided stepping on any of the rakes that had been tossed together.

Please leave the bunker how you would like to find it yourself???

 

It's impossible to let March 6 pass by without a mention of TC Alfred and the devastation that it left behind.  I think I used the word carnage to describe the courses on the first morning and then it was even worse the second morning.  We finished up at a count of 300 stumps when the removal and further appraisals finished.  Not to mention the flooding rains.  This was a quote from ABC news after the event; 

The Tweed Shire Council was one of the worst-hit LGAs in the state, according to Superintendent Tanner.

About 640 millimetres of rain fell at the Tweed Heads Golf Club in the five days up to Monday, March 10, BOM senior climatologist Hugh McDowall said.

He said it was one of the exceptional totals, with the north coast recording an average of 200-400mm.

Just a quick reminder of some of the damage below.  And I remember talking to Murwillumbah Course Super Brian Cox who barely had a branch on the ground!!

RHS 2W tee.

Just the size of them!!

LHS 9W and again the size??

The forecast for the weekend isn't looking good and hopefully won't bring the amount of rainfall that we got last year.  We have some tree works programmed for 16W and also some earthworks planned for 14 and 16W fairways.  They have been planned for these dates for several months to ensure we had our best contractors onsite.  Sadly it may all be washed away although the tree contractors will be working near a hardstand access track so may well still be able to work if the rainfall isn't too bad. 

We recorded rain each day this week with 40mm for the week including 25 overnight Thursday / Friday and given the humidity and heat the grass is well and truly jumping out of the ground.  Our growth regulator applications are at levels I don't think I have seen before to try and keep the grass in check on fairways in particular.

And poor old 8R green copped some damage again.  I don't know why but it always seems to bear the brunt of damage when morons decide to drive vehicles on the course.  At least this time they didn't break the turf canopy so the damage will grow out unlike the damage sustained just prior to my arrival all those years ago!!

This was caused by a car.

Last weeks efforts followed the Ebike two weeks ago.

 

A wet way to end the week with 30mm overnight followed up by another 10mm during the day.  It was a bit disappointing to get the rain in one way as the irrigation system was in full swing this past week with our supply almost back to normal.  For the first time with the new irrigation system, we were running at full capacity of the pumps and virtually all sprinklers were being operated.  One of the many features of the new system is the reduction in our watering window which is the time it takes for a full cycle to run overnight.  Our old system was actually incapable of completing a full cycle overnight whereas the new system can do it in just 5 hours.

The River tees got a renovation this week that consisted of a circle scarify and hollowtine aeration and the cores were then rubbed back into the surface effectively topdressing the tee.  The tees will bounce back very quickly and it is an ideal preparation for them going into winter.  The West course tees will be done next week.

We had a demonstration of a GPS guided boom spray unit this week and although I have seen them before, it was pretty impressive to say the least.  You need to map out the areas that you want to spray and then once this area is selected you merely drive across the area and the booms will turn on and off as required so that only the mapped area gets sprayed.  This results in substantially less product being used which results in significant savings.  It does however come with a significant initial cost.  There is no doubt that autonomous mowers and sprayers will be the way of the future with quite a few variations already available, and indeed, in use on courses in Australia.  Watch this space.....

GPS guided sprayer with the receiver arrowed on top.

 

I mentioned last week that our mechanic Mitch is moving on and we have been lucky enough to find a replacement with help from Mitch so we will only be a week without someone in the workshop.  Our youngest apprentice also resigned this week after just completing his first year.  He was a very good worker but just didn't think greenkeeping was for him long term.

February 28 is a date that will linger for some time as it was our biggest ever flood in 2022.  From memory there were 8 greens fully submerged and another 13 partially under compared to a "normal" flood where 2 greens get some water on them.  450mm of rain in just over 48 hours on already saturated ground plus some monumental falls upstream was the trigger for our flood.  As I write today, there is a severe thunderstorm cell happening near Lismore with up to 175mm of rain in some parts today.  It must be stirring some bad memories for the people down there.

1R green on the morning of March 1, 2022.  The high water level was about 2 feet over the green.

 

 

I don't think anyone could say that last weeks rain event was any sort of surprise with the forecast pretty well spot on 7 days ahead.  The volume of rain certainly varied and some people seemed disappointed by that but weather patterns are an unpredictable thing.  We picked up 180mm over the four days with the bulk coming down on Friday but given favourable tides and the fact we were so dry the courses just lapped it up.  We certainly needed the rain as it was really starting to dry out and stress in the un-irrigated areas.  As previously mentioned the new irrigation system performed extremely well, despite less than normal supply.  At this stage this week supply has returned to normal so we hope that continues.

The arrow indicates the courses during Friday's deluge last week.

 

A well timed fertiliser application to fairways just prior to the rain has them jumping out of the ground and looking very healthy indeed.  We do get comments from time to time that the fairways are too thick but with the extreme volume of cart traffic that we get we need as much buffer as we can.  On the other hand, the sanding that the River greens received in the lead up to the rain was all but washed away. 

Over the next couple of weeks we will be giving the tees some renovation via a scarify and scalp and an aeration.  This will generally happen on the course closure day and is subject to suitable weather conditions.  It may seem strange to be thinking about winter at the moment but we need to get as much healthy grass as possible on the tees to maintain a cover through the winter.

On a very sad note our mechanic Mitch is leaving for personal reasons.  He has big shoes to fill and has settled in to our operation seamlessly over the past 2 and a half years and is personally sad to be moving on.  His analytical skills (read problem solving) are second to none as is his skill in setting mowers up which he had never done prior to joining us.  I have mentioned before that Mitch is the unsung hero of our team that most golfers never get to see but I can assure you we are going to miss his expertise.