Greens Update - January 2024

Happy New Year Everyone!

Let’s hope for a nice, dry spring so that we can achieve all our goals on the golf course. It has taken an awful beating over the last few months and hopefully the rainfall has now stopped - for a little while at least!

It has been a very poor year for rainfall. The total amount recorded at the course in 2023 was 1385mm, the 2nd highest recorded here in the last 11 years. In fact, we have had the 3 largest totals of rainfall in the last 5 years. In 2022 we had 959mm in the whole year, compared to 976mm in the second 6 months of 2023 alone, with only 66 days without rain in the whole 6 months… a challenging time for greenkeeping!! Even January has started wet, with a further 54mm falling so far.

Below is a summary from the Environment Agency with recent figures from across the country.

The EA summary of rainfall over recent months

So, the course is extremely slippery, soft and wet. However a better forecast is upon us, and slowly but surely we may return to playing golf again as soon as possible.

Not only does the wet weather affect playing, it has really hampered our attempts to carry out our winter programme tasks, as it has simply been impossible to carry any major weight around the course (as in machinery, not post-Christmas staff!). Even the sprayer has struggled to travel around the course, meaning some of the products due to be applied to the greens have simply been put on hold.

However, with a better forecast on the horizon we will start to pick up from where we left off, especially with the bunker work. The old faces will be removed, and any debris not being recycled will be taken away too. Then any new soil needed for the rebuild will be added, before finishing off the drainage. We will try and carry out this work as soon as possible, without causing too much disruption.

The greens and collars have had a trim and a granular feed since the turn of the year. There are still old disease scars on the greens, however they have already started to grow out and extra new bent grass seed will be punched into them to aid recovery even further. The tees will be given a winter feed shortly.

Wishing you all the best for 2024!

Steve

Head Greenkeeper