Course Update – November

 

Another month has flown by and it’s hard to believe we are now into November and the Castieau Classic only a couple of weeks away – an event we look at being our 1^st major event of the season. A lot has been happening out on the golf course this past month which has kept us extremely busy. We have recently upgraded our control system for our course pumps, in 2021 we upgraded the course pumps and manifolds and this time it was our electrical control side of things. We had an issue with a variable speed drive (VSD) which was responsible for the running of our 3 main pumps. We had an option to replace the VSD with a like for like replacement but could still leave us vulnerable if the drive was to fail… which would normally happen on say Christmas eve. We presented our case to the board with the option of an upgrade of the control system with each pump having its own VSD so if one was to go down we can still operate with the other pumps to get sufficient water out onto the golf course. Whilst we were waiting (what felt like an eternity) for the control system to be delivered then installed we were severely restricted with how much water we could get out on the golf course. We could only run 2 stations at a time so fairways were only able to receive about 10minutes of irrigation every 3^rd night, a simple greens program – 5 minute runtime on a normal night would take 25 mins was pushing out to near on 3 hours. Surprisingly the course held up ok, fairways were getting a little dry in areas but we weren’t overly concerned in the big picture as we had fairway renovations scheduled and knew they would bounce back fairly quickly.

 

Prior to our green renovations we made a couple of applications of a herbicide called Nominee to target poa populations. All greens except the 13^th and 5^th were sprayed with two applications over a 7 day interval at low dosage.  The planning behind this was to knock out some of the poa whilst our greens  will be actively growing and continually sanded as a result of our renovations and this will allow for the bent to cover back into these areas. Our greens with the higher populations of poa will be over sowed with bent grass seed to speed up the process, this process was done down on the practice green/bunker at the beginning of the year and that green hasn’t looked back. So at the moment some of the greens may look a little splotchy and weird in places and some may look worse then others but this is due to the % of poa which were in the greens. The greens will bounce back, going to print we are now 1 week post renovations, the fertilizers and soil amendments added generally take 5- 7 days to start working so will start seeing some movement in growth and germination of the over sown bent. Our plan over the summer months is to reduce the % in our greens and try and reduce the size of the plants. In Autumn we will look towards incorporating the new chemical poa cure into into our arsenal. Clubs in Perth are seeing great results using the chemical and although it comes with a hefty price tag we see the benefit of utilizing this chemistry on our pure distinction grassed greens (1,2,4,6,9,12,13,16) and any new greens thereafter.

 

Greens renovations themselves went fairly well, a real credit to the team we have got down the shed as we completed the biggest renovation to date. A little snapshot on what was achieved:

• Greens 2x scarified at different directions at -6mm depth
• Collars were also verticut at -6mm and cored with a 19mm hollow tine at 4in depth
• Greens and collars were then blown to remove debris.
• Greens cored with 19mm hollows with varying depth (dependent on ages of greens and thatch/mat layers)
• Cores picked up and removed.
• 2 tonne of gypsum, 250kg Bactivate organic soil conditioner was applied using walk spreaders,)
• Greens top-dressed and sand brushed in ( small and frequent applications of sand will be applied to coincide with regular cutting at 4mm over the next fortnight)
• 400kg Soil fix Mg/Ca along with 350kg NPK greens grade fertilizer.
• Greens Approaches, high traffic areas and par 3 fairways cored with a 25mm hollow at a 4in depth. Sand was rubbed back into the profile and grass debris blown.
• Fairways scarified at -6mm in one direction, debris blown off fairways. Fairways cut at 8mm and will remain at that height of cut for the summer.

 

Over the next couple of weeks, we will focus on the recovery of these areas along with prep leading into the Castieau weekend. Wetting agents will start being applied monthly to both fairways and tee’s along with our regular fortnightly applications on greens…

 

By then, just when you start feeling like you’re getting back on top of things we will have the 8^th green project kicking off on the 20^th of November as part of our ongoing greens replacement program.

 

Works to the 8^th will include:

• Turf and 250mm rootzone soil replacement.
• Near on triple the size of the current red tee.
• Concrete Path
• Bunker construction – reduce slope on face, lift and flatten bunker floor, reshape bunker entry points.
• Rough revitalization – Rotary hoe and remove impeding tree roots LH rough  
• Tree trimming and select removal to allow sunlight to penetrate onto green.
• Roughs will be sprigged with couch then over seeded with a rye – Definition will look brilliant!

 

Whilst works are being carried out the 8^th hole will be closed for play for approx. 4 weeks from then a temporary green will be in play with an expected opening date around the start of January.

 

So, we got more then enough to keep us occupied for the next month… so until then happy golfing!

 

Dave Brennan

Golf Course Superintendent.