Not a lot to report this week with the huge week of golf that is conducted by the Veterans completed.  Combined with member play and a busy Friday afternoon timesheet there were more than 1200 players play the West course from Monday to Friday!!  As usual all credit to the players in the Vets comp and the volunteer spotters and rakers as the courses are always left in clean and tidy condition.

 

The courses are drying out and some rain would be welcome any time it would like to arrive.  One of the difficulties irrigating at this time of year in lower temperatures is that too much water gets put on to the shaded side of the fairways.  A perfect example below on 5R fairway where there is a very dry area in the busy walkway next to the bunker but the left side of the fairway where it is heavily shaded is still quite wet.  There is a sprinkler in the middle of this area which if operated would make the left side of the fairway wet.  You can almost see a line down the middle of the fairway where the shade line is.  This happens on almost all east / west aligned fairways that have shade on the northern side.

5R fairway.

And just like that it was August.  July 2019 did finish up being the warmest on record although the southerly breezes this week certainly cooled things down.  A very busy week of golf on the courses meant quite a bit of shed time was spent painting, cleaning and servicing machinery.  We did start a program of tree trimming which consists of clearing low hanging branches and the removal of a lot of suckers and small trees growing in and on other trees.

We also had to replace the floodgate at RHS 1R, part of which was only replaced 6 months ago.  Unfortunately the best material to construct it from is aluminium to prevent rust and so it was stolen to obviously be cashed in.  They were certainly well prepared as the top grate was actually bolted down and the bolts sheared off to try and prevent the theft.  The replacement will need a crane to move it so hopefully it will stay in place.

Hopefully immovable?

The forecast included some rain this week which wasn't quite right although further south Byron Bay certainly got their share.  It did start to rain a little this morning and I snapped this beautiful rainbow over Banora Point from 18W green. One of the joys of having a golf course for your office.

Beautiful.

Another week of glorious weather and I read that July 2019 is poised to be the hottest month the world has ever recorded.  The warmest July on record for Brisbane was actually last year but that also has a chance of being beaten this year.  This time last year I was in Iceland in the middle of summer and it never got above 10 degrees so at least they help keep the averages down!!

The fertiliser that was applied to the River course greens certainly got a response with quite a bit of leaf being put on them this week.  The River course was closed on Thursday afternoon to allow us unhindered access for maintenance and we took the chance to de-thatch the greens.  It is quite unusual to do this in July but we got a great result.  A lot of dead and decaying leaf matter was pulled out and the greens got a great chance to "breath".  The photo below shows some of the material removed and there is not much green coloured leaf matter in there which is just the result we were after.

Primarily dead material removed.

It is still quite cool in the shade and the northern side of any east - west running fairways are still very thin due to the shading effect of the trees.  I snapped the photo below of 11R fairway at 1.35pm on Tuesday afternoon and you can still see the wheel marks in dew even though the sun had been out all day and the temperature was in the low 20's.  Further up the fairway near the players you can see much greener fairway grass that gets much more sunlight.

Dew still on the ground @ 1.35pm.

As mentioned last week a very busy golfing schedule over the next two weeks.  The Queensland senior amateur next week for three days followed the next week by the Vets week of golf means that our access to the courses is limited and restricted primarily to course set up only on the course being used for the event.  It's all been done before though and we welcome the challenge to present the courses as good as can be to the many visiting golfers.  

A very sincere thank you to those members who have gone out of their way to congratulate me on being awarded life membership of the Australian Superintendents Association.  It is indeed a great honour and I am humbled to have received it.  There is only one other Association life member and that is none other than Doug Robinson who was also the Superintendent here at Cool Tweed in the 1980's and has also done a significant amount of work over the past 25 years on the courses in construction.  I remember first meeting Doug in the early 1980's and as the then Association President he would send out correspondence with a return address in Banora Point which I had no idea of its location.  Fast forward nearly 40 years and here I am at Coolangatta Tweed and living in Banora Point!!

Back to the courses and some dirty rainy weather while I was on leave but that seems to happen to Assistant Simon every time I go away.  The weather this week has been anything but rainy with some amazing daytime temperatures for this time of year.  Yes the mornings have been cold but mid 20's daytime temperatures make up for all that.  There is still a little bit of leaf growth, particularly on the fairways and we were able to get them all liquid fertilised this week which might help them get a little more growth but the Iron and Manganese in the mix helps colour them up.  The greens, particularly the TifEagle West greens have lost their colour with the cold overnight temperatures sending soil temperatures down.  They too were fertilised this week but with more of a soil conditioner to help them survive the near dormancy they are now in.

A few frost patches around last Monday!!

Quite a bit of root pruning has now been carried out and if it stays dry we should start to see some results in favour of the playing areas very soon.  Not knowing where a lot of pipes and sprinkler control tubes go is an issue and unfortunately we hit some on the right side of 12R where you would have never thought they would be which meant some detective work in finding the leaks and then some sprinkler replacement.

Post root pruning.

A very busy month of golf coming up with a large number of tour / social groups visiting, Vets week of golf, Club Champs, Mixed 4Somes Champs, some pennant and the Pro Am.  There have been some course closures allocated to help us prepare the courses unhindered as that is when we are most productive and the crew are looking forward to the challenge of presenting the courses as good as the weather will allow us over the next 5 weeks.  Being able to work when the grass is dry is also a great help and results in a much better finished product.

A busy week of golf on both courses in some great weather and the nice positive comments about playing conditions is always nice to hear.  The crew have done a great job recently so it was only natural to have a BBQ breakfast this morning.  Apologies to the members walking up 9W fairway next to the shed and smelling the bacon and eggs cooking!!

Not the healthiest but very tasty and just reward.

I mentioned last year about some Wintergrass (which is Poa annua) on the courses that has become resistant to our normal control methods and we now have some in 3R green so trials have commenced using alternative methods of control.  Watch this space.

And speaking of Poa annua which was mentioned seemingly a thousand times on last weeks coverage of the US Open golf and was incorrectly referred to as "Po anna" which is most definitely not how it is pronounced.  I mentioned last week that Monterey is not an easy place to grow grass and the Poa thrives there and so they accept it and live with it.  The greens seemed to play very well and considering that the course is really only a par 69 with 2 easily reached par 5's, only 2 players broke par so it was still a very stern test of golf and the course looked and played very well.

Green speed looked to be a suitable match to the greens design at Pebble Beach which is a critical aspect of preparing a course for tournament play.  The old classic courses, especially in the USA, were designed with some severely sloping greens that are not really suited to fast greens.  As an example in 1978 the USGA visited over 500 courses and recorded their green speeds and the results are astounding when you compare them to the same courses today where they all seem to run in excess of 12 feet on the stimpmeter.  Oakmont which is considered to have the fastest greens year round in the USA had their greens running at over 14 feet for the 2016 open on greens that have the same slopes as were there in 1978! 

1978 speeds;

• Harbour Town, 5-1 (5 feet, 1 inch)
• Congressional, 6-4
• Merion, 6-4
• Pinehurst No. 2, 6-10
• Pebble Beach, 7-2
• Shinnecock Hills, 7-2
• Pine Valley, 7-4
• Winged Foot, 7-5
• Cypress Point, 7-8
• Medinah, 7-8
• Augusta National, 7-11
• Oakland Hills, 8-5
• Oakmont, 9-8

At least the foxes that dig in our bunkers are only nocturnal and I am probably the only person that sees them on the courses in the very early morning course inspections I make.  These fellows are a good bit bolder though!!

Foxy!!

I will be on leave for the next 3 weeks so will return to the world of blogging in mid July.  Until then enjoy the golf courses and good golfing to you all.                   

The amazing run of warmer temperatures continues with a reading of 27 degrees in the compound today which allowed the opportunity for the West greens to get another de-thatching which for this time of year is nearly unheard of.  This is the operation where thatch is removed and the deeper you go the more surface disruption you have.  At this time of year it was only a shallow depth used and a large amount of dead material was removed as a result with virtually no surface disruption.  A definition of thatch is - The intermingled layer of living and dead grass stems, roots and other organic matter that is found between the soil surface and the leaf blades.   

In the photo below you can see the tungsten tip on the end of the blade which helps prolong the life of the blades as they wear very quickly.

Close up of the de-thatcher reel.

The US Open golf is obviously on this week and the course looks amazing.  The Monterey Peninsula where Pebble Beach GL is located is a very unique environment and not a very easy place to grow good turf.  Not only the proximity to the ocean and resultant seaspray but they have very variable conditions with winds coming up very quickly and abating and a lot of sea mist / fog.  Golf is very expensive there and to the credit of the owners they pour money back into the course to maintain the excellent conditions.  A crew of 40 maintain the course day to day and they have been bolstered by 100 volunteers for the week which includes six Australians.  The attention to detail all year round is astounding on the course but goes to the extreme come tournament time.  If you click on the link below it will take you to a video showing how they repair pitch marks.

t.co/CbKwmgytKJ  

Another very quiet week on the courses with staff numbers still low but at least that does coincide with the low growth time.  Some more very cold mornings has really snapped the turf back with the greens in particularl losing colour and tightening up which is a natural reaction to the cold.

 

A windy week means lots of tree debris around on the playing surfaces which has been cleared as well as could be.  There is rain in the forecast too and dare I say it but we could do with a bit right now and hopefully it co-operates and comes down overnight and not spoiling golf.

 

And we got a chance to get the root pruner out for the first time this week with some work being done on 4 and 9 West fairway edges.  The machine cruised through the areas with some sizable roots encountered along the way.  The tractor has to move very slowly and so it is a job best done away from play for the safety of the operator.  There is very minor surface disruption following the pruning as can be seen below and even on very hard ground we were still getting up to 250mm of penetration.

 

6 slices evident on the RHS 9W.