The wet re-appeared this week and although not high figures of rainfall it certainly has us sodden again although at least we are open to play while many others are closed completely.  The torrential downpour we got at 8am this morning literally flooded the entire course which was a shame as prior to that we were actually not too bad - on the River course at least.  The photo below is of 6R green this morning during the downpour.  No green could cope with that level of rain and the green is doing exactly what the design calls for with the water sheeting off the green.

6R green Friday morning.

 

The rain was well and truly predicted and in preparation we had our big slicer out on some of the wettest fairways and also had our pedestrian aerators doing some solid tining on fairways to try and help move some water off the surface, but to no avail.  The photo below shows 5R fairway on Friday morning with the slice lines clearly visible in amongst the puddles of water.

Still wet on 5R.

At least with The Open on at the moment readers can still get a bit of a golf fix although the Aussies haven't started well.  It's really interesting that a completely new hole has been added to the course for this years event.  It's not totally unheard of as Kingston Heath in Melbourne generally always use their 19th hole in tournament play.  Birkdale has had some serious modifications over the years and this Youtube vid gives a great description of what has been done and why.  It's certainly a very different looking golf course when it's green like it is in the vid.

https://youtu.be/cOr2PfLiwp0?si=45nyexkLtZZMrlrH   

Some very welcome dry weather this week and the courses are finally drying out.  4, 10 and 11W fairways are still a bog and I can't recall them ever being this wet for so long before.  Please follow the signage on these holes and avoid driving on the fairways.

A fairly quiet week elsewhere on the courses with low staff numbers due to sickness and annual leave which was probably a good week to occur as we slowly dried out.  At last carts were back on and player numbers increased but it seems many have forgotten some basic course etiquette.  It wouldn't matter how many staff we had to maintain the courses we couldn't keep up with presenting a surface when players treat the courses like below.  These photos all taken on Thursday morning following Wednesday's midweek members comp.

10R greenside Thursday am.

 

14R greenside Thursday am.

11R fairway divots.

As the old saying goes "leave the golf course the way you would like to find it"!!

One of the poorest areas on the courses in recent years has always been the cart path entries and exits.  We had a plan to re-turf some of these last summer but the constant rain kept washing us out and we didn't get to any of them.  This week we trialed a product that mixes with sand giving it excellent structure and firmness but not allowing it to become compacted which is the main cause of turf loss on these areas.  It is only a very small trial at the front of 16R tees and given the low growth period we are in it may be hard to truly assess the success of the procedure, but it looks very promising.  One to watch.

The "mixed" sand on the left.

  

The tale of wet continues and the courses, particularly the West, just aren't drying out.  I have actually been wondering if we have been doing something wrong as some of these wet / boggy areas have never been like it before.  I attended the annual Turf Conference in Melbourne last week and was almost relieved to hear that golf courses anywhere from Coffs Harbour to Hervey Bay are as wet as they have ever been, despite lower YTD rainfall figures. Comments such as "never seen some of these areas this wet before" and 10mm of rain feels like 100mm" were pretty common and echo my thoughts.  And we are considered to be a dry course in comparison to many others.

LHS 4W fairway near 135m marker.

Cart tracks near 135m marker 10W fairway.

Hand pulled buggy damage LHS 11W fairway.

 

The photos above were all taken on Thursday afternoon and these areas are the main reason carts have been off the West course this week.  The photo below was taken last Sunday morning after Saturdays hand pulled buggy traffic on 13W fairway.

13W fairway.

 

We got greens on both courses "needle tine aerated" this week with a 6mm diameter tine which causes little or no surface disruption but allows for some much needed oxygen exchange and allows the surface to breathe.  The tees were also done but with a 12.5mm tine which again causes little surface disruption but allows for the air exchange and will hopefully help the tees dry out a bit.

We also pulled our big tractor mounted slicer out and trialed it on some fairway areas to see if it would assist in drying them up but with the damage caused at this time of year with little potential recovery, we judged it not worth the effort given the time it takes.  When some of the really boggy areas such as those above on 4, 10 and 11W fairways dry out some more, we will definitely be trying it again on those smaller areas.  

Slicer in action RHS 9W fairway.