Finally a relatively dry week although the forecast doesn't look good.  At least there has been some sun and the River greens have responded well following a solid tine aeration and sanding earlier in the week.  All bunkers on both courses are finally in play now, awaiting the coming rain!!

On the TCAlfred clean up, the last load of mulch left the property this afternoon which is the end of that monumental task.  I will get a tonnage figure of what was taken away at some stage but it's huge to say the least.  We are still finding some trees that have ''popped'' such as the one pictured below which was one of three on 5W.  We are also finding a few more dead trees as we go and are removing them when possible.  The stump removal started this week and possibly moved a little faster than expected and the hanger removal is also in progress.  The leftover chips and logs from the stump grinding will be left stacked until there is enough for us to economically collect them.

Another root popped out.

 

We are also stockpiling some green waste down near Halfway West and there will be some more added early next week with the the woodchipper coming on site next Thursday to clean it up.  We are using that area as it has excellent access for the truck and chipper.

The last truck being loaded down next to 6R.

The tower reaching up for the hangers.

That's him just in case you can't see him.

A bit of an update on where we are at with what's been happening on the courses over the past month which has probably been the most hectic of my career.  All of the tree pile at 6R has now been mulched and will be trucked out next week.  Was there a mulch pile in the car park?  You wouldn't know now!!

Stump and hanger removal will start on Monday.  It has been estimated that the stump removal will take up to a month but as not many contractors have ever done this number of stumps in size and quantity, it's hard to know.  Holes will need to be closed or shortened while the contractors work to ensure their safety for the duration.  It has been estimated that some of the larger ones will take 3 - 4 hours to remove so it will be a slow process.  Once the contractors get up into the trees to remove the hangers they will also be able to identify potential risk trees going forward. 

In addition to the 96 trees that were totally uprooted in TCAlfred, there were many others severely damaged by falling trees near them or others just damaged structurally like the one that was split down the middle on 16R.

From a distance.

Close up.

 

The courses are incredibly wet and apart from Monday this week it has not been very good drying weather recently.  Another 10mm overnight into Friday just topped us up again.  We received 807mm of rain in March.  That's just over 32 inches.  It takes our total since November 1 to 2196mm or just shy of 88 inches.

12W fairway works area took the rain fairly well.  The area will need a couple of sand trenches put in to help move the water down the profile.  The bunker drainage needed a further upgrade this week after it was contaminated by some clay in the deluge.  The area was turfed on Monday March 3 in the middle of heavy rain and we were literally grading in front of the turf layers so some of the levels are now out a bit.  Given the rain we got later that week in TCAlfred I was amazed the turf didn't float away.  Since the area was turfed we have had 33 inches of rain in 32 days, so it’s had a fair workout!!

Irrigation install slowed again this week.  17R green and fairway are complete and some big pipe is going across 17R and rear 16R green to hook up to two mainlines there.  There is still some drainage repair required at the front of 18R tee but the high tides and water table has made it difficult this past week.  The pump station commissioning is imminent which is rather exciting as that will be when we get some really good flow rates happening.  Not that irrigation has been at the forefront of our thoughts this summer.

The West greens got a solid tine aeration yesterday to get some oxygen down to the roots and the River greens will be done during next Tuesdays closure. The River greens will also receive a sanding and granular fertiliser to try and promote some growth  Mowing heights on the River greens will then be lifted to try and get some cover going into winter as they are desperately thin given the lack of sunlight this summer due to the constant rain.