Greens Update - June 2023
Hi everyone!
It looks like the dry and hot weather may finally break this weekend (17th/18th) , which I’m sure will be of delight to some of you keen gardeners out there. The course is drying out very nicely and has developed that “links” look which can happen at this time of year. Hopefully the sunshine will return after next week’s possible showers, and you can continue to experience playing golf in quality weather.
The greens are holding up very nicely despite the hot weather, and that is due to the staff’s care and attention to the moisture levels in the greens. It has been critical to minimise the amount of “drying down” on the greens so that the playability of the surfaces was not impacted so much. We have achieved this by using the irrigation system at night, and specifically targeting weaker areas using the hand hose during the day.
The main irrigation system has an additive pumped into the tank to help reduce the pH of the water. The water coming from the borehole is around 8.4 and so can be very detrimental to the surfaces if constantly used by itself. The acidic additive brings down the pH to a much better working environment and so helps the greens to recover. When using the hose, a wetting agent tablet is used so that the driest areas of the greens can regain and hold moisture more readily.
Another factor in protecting the greens is the height and frequency of cut. We have not been cutting the greens every day, sometimes just rolling them to protect them. We have been cutting at 4mm. Ideally, I would like to cut a tad lower but hopefully above I have explained the reasons why we don’t want to stress the greens so much. If weather conditions and stress levels on the greens allow, we will lower the height slightly.
Today the greens were sprayed with a compost tea/seaweed/humic acid/liquid feed mix which is all designed to help condition the soil to cope during this heat stress. They were also given a light dressing at the start of the week to aid with smoothness. These types of applications will continue over the summer to help to keep the greens as good as possible.
Obviously, this concentrated work on the greens has meant that some other areas of the course may be slightly behind, however we will be maintaining these as quickly as possible. For example, the tee banks and certain other areas have got wispy tufts of turf which are very difficult to cut in these hot and dry conditions, and so we will be going round with a rotary mower to try and cut these down and make them more manageable. This goes for certain areas of the fairways too.
Finally, you may also notice that we have had an issue with the approaches mower, where one of the units became loose and decided to start cutting lower than the others. This has left the collars and approaches with an uneven consistency. However, it has already started to grow back and we will be back to normal in no time. This has actually shown that, going forward, the approaches do need a lot of work to improve their consistency and quality, and an initial lower cutting height, overseeding, aeration and feeding regime is much needed to improve their quality.
Hope you keep enjoying the course, and we’ll see you out there!
Steve & the Greens Team
