I mentioned last week that we are mostly about preparing the turf for winter at the moment and a superb week of weather has certainly helped move that along.  The tees and fairways have an excellent cover of grass and have had a surge of growth this week which is exactly what we want.  We actually probably had too much grass on the tees when we arrived on Tuesday after five days of no mowing due to Easter and some wet humid conditions.  We have also had a surge of late season crowsfoot germination that I don't really want to treat at the moment for fear of setting the turf back when we have it in such good condition.  The crowsfoot will "melt" out as we get cooler.

The way the weather has been this past month we haven't had to think about irrigation so it was quite nice today to have to remember how to run the system.  Our pipework is always pressurised  and ready to go but when the weather has been as bad as it has, we certainly haven't needed the new system.  While we aren't using any water the small jockey pump that keeps the system at pressure starts twice a day at the most.  The old system had so many leaks in it that the old jockey pump would start several times an hour so there is a significant saving there on power, not to mention wear and tear on pipework.

Weather permitting next week we will be adding some sand to some of the heaviest used bunkers and if the weather continues we may try and sneak some sand on to the River greens as a final leveller moving in to winter.  As mentioned above the grass is having one last surge so we have lots of mowing to catch up on especially after the recent short weeks.  

And I can't let The US Masters pass without some comment.  Superintendents the world over call golfers responses to the Masters as "Augusta Syndrome" when players ask "why can't our course be that good"?  It's fairly well documented that the maintenance budget at Augusta is almost infinite and they have a huge crew numbering 60 that is supplemented by an army of more than 100 volunteers for the tournament.  Indeed, most of the volunteers are not a "Dad's Army" but Course Supers from some of the worlds best Clubs.  I think I counted 560 names on our timesheet today which is probably a years worth of play for Augusta!!   A few bits of trivia about Masters week is that it is the first PGA Tour event played on Bentgrass greens this year and there are only 44 bunkers on the course.  The greens average just on 600 square metres which is about the size of 12W at Cool Tweed even though they look much bigger.  For a Course Super there's probably not a more high pressure job and this is Augusta's main mans 2nd Masters after his predecessor did 27.  Having said that the incumbent has been at Augusta for 16 years.  Well I'm off to watch some R1 highlights.......

Fairway mowing Augusta style.

 

 

 

And still it rains!!  We just can't seem to get a break and although there hasn't been big totals this past week the persistent showers are more than annoying.  We have got quite a lot of disease pressure across the courses, particularly in the greens with the constant leaf wetness providing the perfect situation for disease to flourish, and flourishing it is.  579mm YTD March 31 for us compared to the airport @ 520mm and if you go north to Windaroo GC they recorded just 286mm!!  So our 252mm for March nearly topped their YTD total. It's certainly lucky that we are considered to be a "dry" course and can take a reasonable amount of rain but this is ridiculous.  Once again the course closure on Tuesday this week was seriously affected with light showers most of the day meaning we couldn't get the planned work done that requires dry conditions.

A lot of what we are doing on course at the moment is planned to get the turf in the best condition possible as we steam towards winter with the daylight hours shortening and temperatures dropping.  All playing surfaces have been fertilised to try and achieve any growth we can to bolster the surfaces.  The continual wet conditions are seeing some damage from the cart traffic in areas so please watch where you drive and avoid the soft slippery areas.

One good news story for the week is one of the "habitat trees" that we left between the two 18's got some new residents this week.

  

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.