My kids who live in Melbourne joke that the worst part of a seven day lockdown is the first three weeks.  Let's hope that's not the case for us!

A bit of a quiet week with low staff numbers due to the lockdown once again.  We were able to get all the West tees scarified and this year we used a ride on machine rather than the walk behind.  Time wise it was similar but there is much less disruption to the surface whilst still getting the desired result.  We also finished aerating the West fairways and did 10W green end with an old aerator that doesn't do quite as good a job but doesn't smash tines as often.  10W fairway was pretty much a graveyard for old car parts at one stage and there are all sorts of car rubbish buried underneath it which doesn't combine well for any sort of cultivation.

We are certainly starting to dry out and irrigation is at full capacity which is really difficult given the constant wind we are experiencing.  The roughs are very dry and the root pruned areas are still showing the benefit with a photo of LHS 8R below showing once again enough moisture for Poa annua to grow in the root free area.  The water table is also plummeting.

LHS 8R.

 

The vast majority of the fairways are irrigated by a single row of sprinklers that have a throw of around thirty metres.  They are what's known as gear drive sprinklers with the water passing through the gear mechanism making them rotate.  The sprinklers we have are also two speed so they slow down when covering the sides of the fairways where there is no overlap.  It is quite possible that some of the sprinklers date back to the 1970's but such is their construction that they are still going strong.  We rarely have failures with the gear drive and generally only find out they aren't turning when the turf starts drying out close to them as happened on 5W this week.  The photo below shows where the water was going while the sprinkler wasn't turning.

Nice and green where the water went!!

 
And speaking of discoloration I walk past a bowls club fairly regularly and there have been some patches on one of the greens that have had my turfhead interested.  I actually saw someone working on the green and asked him about them and got the expected answer of some disease.  But the area below was caused by the use of a defibrillator on one of the bowlers who collapsed on the green with the electric charge killing the grass and causing a surge of growth on the perimeter which is what happens when you get a lightning strike on a green.
 

Damaged green.

We have officially had enough of the wind for the week and it has had an extreme adverse effect on irrigation distribution with it barely abating all week.  It has been an advantage for the fairway aeration by drying out the cores to allow them to be rubbed in a little easier but that is the only positive.  One of the big negatives of the wind is the amount of leaf debris that finds its way in to the bunkers.  The photo below shows 4R bunker being blown out Friday morning when we finally got a break from the gales.

Leaves, leaves and more leaves.

The aeration continued and only 10W fairway remains on the West course.  16W was only partially done as we were breaking way too many tines on the fairway due to the roots from the Fig trees extending all the way across the fairway.  And they weren't all on the surface either as the photo of a core below shows the root about 40mm below the surface.  Yes that's solid wood on the bottom 25mm.  The good part about the roots was that they were very dry which means that the root pruning down the side of the fairway earlier this year has had the desired effect.

No wonder the 16W struggles to grow good turf.

 

Speaking of root pruning and another good result down the LHS 12R fairway.  The only problem with the pruning showing up so well is that it means we are very dry.  After the almost ridiculous 1.6 metres of rain for the first six months of 2021, we have slowed right down and have had just 141mm in July followed by 20mm in August and just 26mm thus far in September.  We certainly need some soon.

Chalk and cheese.

 

We sprayed some of the foreign couchgrass that has found its way into the centre of the River greens this week and will be plugging it out to the side of the green before re-turfing those areas.  At this stage the River greens renovation will go ahead as planned on Monday October 18 although as with just about everything in life at the moment that will be Covid dependent.

The lower player numbers due to the border closure has given us the chance to get a course to ourselves each Tuesday.  This week we were able to get a dry dethatch and mow on the West greens.  The benefit of doing this in the dry is huge with a far superior result against when we have to do it with dew.  More material is removed in the dethatch and the quality of cut in the mow is first class.  Next week we will be scarifying the West tees weather permitting. 

And thanks to Nicole for the kind post on FB earlier in the week and to those members who liked or commented.  I can't take too much credit though as it's the staff who put the runs on the board - I just plan and co-ordinate it.  So a big thanks to the crew for all they do. 

Hopefully we will get back to normal staffing levels next week with the opening up of the border which will be good because we are getting very busy.  The fairway aeration continued this week and the fairways are coming up really well.  We don't always aerate out to the fairway edge so as to avoid coming in contact with tree roots which can smash the tines and given that each tine is worth $18 and there are 48 on the machine it is also economically responsible as well.

The River greens got a sanding on Tuesday which really helps the surface but the sand was quite badly contaminated with some stones and coagulated fertiliser which needed to be blown off the greens which cost time that we could ill afford.  For the first time in my career the sand supply company admitted fault and are going to replace the sand mix.  Once we had blown the greens off the result was as per normal.

The contaminated particles on the green.

We had to put out the first application of growth regulator on the fairways this week as the couchgrass had started to seed.  Apart from being unsightly the seedhead is also very difficult to mow with our reel mowers and at the appropriate rate the growth regulator prevents the formation of the seedhead.  The timing of the seedhead appearing at the start of the season varies from year to year and this is fairly early.  Last year it was September 25 and in 2019 it was the same as this year.  I generally associate it with a change in the weather so hopefully we are in for an early spring.

Seedhead evident in light rough.

And it doesn't look like there will be much social distancing going on at Whistling Straits for the Ryder Cup in a couple of weeks.  The first hole has been shortened to allow for more grandstands to accommodate the hordes of expected spectators.

Stadium golf that's for sure!!

And I doubt there were any grandstands at Moortown GC in Leeds for the 1929 Ryder Cup which was the first ever held on British soil.  It is a gem of a course and was designed by the famous Alister MacKenzie in his home town of Leeds.  I got the chance to play it back in 2014 and it was the first time that I had ever carried a mat to play off due to the winter conditions.

A great Mackenzie course.

First time for everything!

 

A first for us this week with the start of fairway aeration with our new tractor mounted implement in use.  It is essentially two of our existing walking machines coupled together on the back of a tractor and driven by the tractors power take off and so is quite a precision machine.  Previously we have had quite an ''agricultural'' type of aerator that probably did more harm than good.  With the amount of play we get it is going to be a very slow process but the fairways will show great benefit.  We are doing about half a fairway at a time that will allow players to gain relief to the other side of the fairway while we are working.  The cores are left on the fairway until dry and then rubbed in to effectively topdress the fairway.  The resultant ''chaff'' is then blown off.  Players may take relief under Rule 16.1b (relief for ball in general area) or play the ball as it lies.

We're off....aerating.

A totally unexpected 10mm of rain on Wednesday night was certainly welcome as we were starting to dry out.  A good tell-tale sign of how dry it is, are the drainlines showing up and also the recent successful root pruning becoming evident in a number of areas.  Below is a photo of a drain line on 1R fairway and some of the root pruned areas really showing out.

Drainline on 1R.

The first one is down the LHS 11R fairway and the line of the cut is quite distinct.  The other photo is from the RHS 11R fairway and there is enough moisture in the treated area to allow the Poa to still grow compared with the RHS towards the trees that is bone dry.

LHS 11R fairway.

 

Enough moisture for the Poa.

And from a bygone era when we had a great golf tour in Australia with the 1984 / 85 tournament schedule for Australian golf below.  Cool Tweed figures although the thought of playing a four day tournament in late February in our heat wouldn't be too appealing.  Especially after checking the rainfall records and Monday of that week had 43mm, Tuesday 4mm, Wednesday 14mm, Thursday 32mm and Friday 46mm!!  But alas the tournament was cancelled with the last Classic played in 1983 and won by Graham Marsh.  Payne Stewart and Gary Player were also winners of the Classic.

Some great tournaments  back in the day.

 

And I believe the photo below was taken in Australia and you would be hard pressed to get four greater legends warming up next to each other.  Reminds me of the old Tommy Bolt quote; ''I've seen Nicklaus watch Ben Hogan practice but I've never seen Hogan watch Nicklaus''.  Love the old Spalding bag.

Truly an awesome 4some.

 

Just a week of routine maintenance with the reduced crew thanks to the border closure.  Only seven staff on course early in the week with a couple on pre arranged annual leave.  Ramped all the way up to nine by weeks end though!!  We have been joined by two qualified greenkeepers from Hope Island and The Grand.  I don't think either of them have ever seen so many golfers on a course at the one time.  Particularly on Friday when there was no room to move on either course. Unfortunately they may be here for a while.

I came in to set some irrigation last Saturday evening and got the dreaded call from the Pro Shop that there's water everywhere near 1W green.  Got out there to find a six inch mainline had let go so instead of scheduling irrigation it was a cancellation program sent out.  A large sub-surface area was impacted by the volume of water and hence the large area left after the repair requiring re-turfing.

1W awash.

 

Tweed Shire Council have a contractor who is monitoring the movement of foxes throughout the Shire and they have visited the course a number of times over the past few weeks.  At this stage there have been no dens identified on our property but certainly quite a lot of activity overnight which I can vouch for as I regularly see them on my morning round.  To help gain data of actual movement there have been a number of motion sensor cameras installed around the property such as the one below.

 

Camera near 9W tee.

 

 

A productive week on the courses despite being four men down.  Unfortunately four of my qualified greenkeepers live in Queensland and are unable to cross the border for work.  It's a situation that is obviously affecting a lot of people who live close to the border in many ways and is extremely frustrating.  All four have mortgages to pay and two have a young family so it's certainly not ideal for them.  With a bit of luck we might be able to get them some work in Queensland as a few clubs on the Gold Coast have staff who are similarly stuck in NSW.  I have already picked up one greenkeeper from Hope Island and am talking to a few more next week so hopefully we will be able to replace them for what will hopefully be the short term.

It was pretty much routine maintenance with the lower staff numbers and two balls in the first groups playing in just over two hours doesn't give us much time to get the work done in front of them.  We were able to get the West greens de-thatched twice this week and cut into the turf canopy a little deeper than usual to try and reduce the thatch that naturally builds up.  The greens cleaned up quite nicely and are putting really well with good roll and speed.

Speaking of speed, in 1976 / 77 the USGA took greens speed readings on 1500 greens across 36 States and the average speed was 6.5 feet on the stimpmeter.  The table below shows the speed at some of the elite courses in the USA at the time.  I was watching ''Shells Wonderful World of Golf '' recently on YouTube and watched a match at Pine Valley back in the 60's I think it was and the greens were very slow.  The players were almost taking a half swing at their putts!!

Interesting speeds?

 

What a beautiful week of weather to come back to after recuperating at home for two weeks following some surgery on my hand.  Some really good temperatures and the days are getting longer so light intensity is improving which all combines to help the turf.  It even felt a bit stormy this afternoon so hopefully the warmth will keep up.

A couple of weeks ago the edges of the West greens were sprayed to control some broadleaf weeds and some Poa annua that had germinated in the perimeter cut line.  We got a great result on the broadleaf and a poor result on the Poa so it is obviously one of the resistant strains.  We also got a leaf tip burn on the Tif that should grow out without any long term problem.  Speaking of resistant Poa annua we have finally had a great result with the Poa literally melting out on River greens 3, 7 and 10.  Not as good a result in the longer surrounds but great in the greens.

Tip burn at 5W green edge.

Along with the warmer temperatures we are also starting to dry out with normal low winter rainfall figures occurring that will hopefully continue given the deluges of the past two years.  The general drying out will really start to show the benefits of the root pruning that was done along side the fairways in June.  You can already see some of the lines starting to show as per the one below which is on LHS 2R fairway.  Unfortunately due to irrigation / drainage and other services we are unable to do a lot of the pruning close to greens and tees which is a shame.

 

Cut line evident on 2R.

I don't think bunkers have ever been a non-topic at any golf club anywhere in the world.  Since the Covid playing restrictions have been lifted and the rakes returned to the bunkers we have been raking more often.  Staff numbers dictate just how often we can rake and it certainly isn't every day.  Raking bunkers is something that players can do to assist in the maintenance of the course every time they play a shot and the old saying of leaving the bunker as you would like to find it is just so true.  The photo below is of LHS 4R green yesterday morning.  I guess after you have played ten shots and nearly stepped on the rake you would be too tired to pick it up and use it !

Really?

And an amazing story from the last couple of weeks of golf, in particular women's golf.  It was interesting to see the stark contrast between the men's and women's games at the Olympics.  The men tore the place up with wedges in hand for most second shots whereas the ladies were playing some much longer clubs in and it almost looked a different golf course, and to my eye was more entertaining to watch.  And last weekend's US ladies amateur was played at one of the first courses I ever visited and played in the US @ Westchester CC.  So I tuned in and the course was as expected - immaculate.  An interesting story about the winner, Jensen Castle who was injured prior to the tournament and only played because she had an exemption.  She fired 79 in the first round of qualifying and then somehow got into a playoff to qualify for the matchplay with twelve other players for two spots.  In her semi final she came from dormy 2 down to win on the 19th with a twelve foot birdie putt.  The other amazing thing is that Castle used the same ball over the final five rounds and slept on the floor of a friends house because she had only booked three nights in a hotel expecting an early exit!!