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?