A couple of milestones of sorts this week with the 10 year anniversary of the start of the West greens conversion to TifEagle, and I still sometimes refer to them as the "new" greens.  And this Blog passed 1 million page views which converts to an average of over 5,000 hits a month over its life.

An incredibly busy week on the courses with the installation started on the concrete paths on 1 and 9R.  A huge effort by the crew from Dallem Concrete Constructions to get 1R completed in the week and 9R prepped for concrete next week.  It was a frustrating week with the rain forecast changing almost hourly it seemed, and a dump of just shy of 20mm on Wednesday night.  But we got through and most importantly got the concrete trucks on and off the property without too much damage.  Working on the wettest hole on the property was always going to bring up some problems but I'm glad we are past it now.

The fairway bunker will be totally filled in as a cart path can't run in front of it and these works are scheduled for next week.

Please avoid driving or walking on the new path while it cures.

The pour on 1R begins with the ominous clouds overlooking.

 

Not easy getting concrete trucks to the softest place on the property.

 

The dam stabilisation works at 6R have also been completed in the week and have come up just as planned with a very good result.  The high flow from the tidal water will certainly test the structure out but in such a high flow environment it is the best potential solution.

Another day and night of strong gusty winds on Wednesday had leaf debris down across the courses but a great effort by the crew to get the main playing surfaces cleaned up for round 2 and 3 of the Club Champs this weekend.  

Some really strong gusty winds left a huge pile of leaves and tree debris around the courses with the recent dry conditions adding to the amount of leaf matter.  It was a daunting task facing the crew on Thursday morning but they went to work and cleared all playing surfaces and finished off the job on Friday morning.  The debris in most of the bunkers had to be hand raked up and some piles in the bunkers were a foot thick.  Another enormous effort by the team to restore the playability of the courses and the wind switched to a much softer northerly on Friday afternoon but the courses should stay clean for round 1 of the club championships.

Just some of the leaves being blown across 2R fairway.

There are some disturbing predictions of some major rainfall in the coming weeks including the one below that shows an accumulated total over 100mm for our region by October 18.  With the construction works starting next week let's hope they have it wrong.

Hope the farmers get it and we miss out??

Work is scheduled to begin on Monday on the installation of concrete cart paths on holes 1 and 9R and the dam bank stabilisation works at 6R.  This is our most tidal dam and we are trying a slightly different method to the traditional rockwall that that will hopefully handle the tidal movement better.  The photo below shows what the finished product should look like with the existing rockwall rebuilt and some rock placed behind it and capped with shot rock.  It has worked on other tidal dams but 6R has some severe water movement.  We will also want some fine weather as over a third of the property drains out through this dam so we don't want any outflow happening.

 

 

It's nice to get back to some decent weather on the Tweed and the turf around the courses is certainly responding.  An application of some growth regulator to control seedhead formation on the fairways caused a slight burn so all fairways on both courses were fertilised this week.  The new irrigation system swung into action to water the fertiliser in and what a dream it was.  Exact application in a very small watering window overnight for a great result which only gets better with time.  The greens also got a light fertiliser application this week and have also responded with a little bit of growth.  

We continue our fight against resistant Poa annua plants and have now got some results from some resistance tests that were carried out on our behalf.  10 products were trialed in a lab environment and double rates were applied twice over a 2 week period.  Double rates were used as we have already tried all these products at normal rate.  Only one product was effective and two other had moderate success.  Unfortunately the successful product is too risky to use on greens so a search continues for a solution to our greens issue , which fortunately is limited to only a couple of greens.  With the recent dry conditions a lot of the Poa in fairways is dying out so hopefully we can stay dry.

We are gearing up for the course works that are scheduled to commence on Monday October 12.  Concrete cart paths are to be installed on 1 and 9R and the dam embankment on the RHS 6R green is to be restored.  The paths are scheduled to take 10 working days and the rockwall 7 days.  All 3 holes will be closed throughout to ensure the safety of all contractors and staff.  As players will be walking / driving down the holes please be mindful of the workers and follow any signage.

I mentioned a couple of posts back that we had some international greenkeepers coming out to join us.  Unfortunately one of the Scottish lads has returned home after arriving and an Englishman has decided not to come despite having the necessary visas.  One of our Scots will start next Tuesday and hails from the highly rated Gullane Golf Club and anyone that knows where Gullane is will realise that you couldn't get two more different golf courses than us and them!!  He has had an induction and loves the climate and course environment so we look forward to his start next week.  Two other Italian greenkeepers that are currently working in Switzerland are also planning to come and have applied for the necessary visas but the visas are taking up to 3 months to process at the moment so hopefully they get theirs through fast.