This month has seen grass growth begin to slow down allowing us to reduce the frequency of cut on all surfaces, this has been due to lower night time temperatures that have dropped enough to allow a grass frost to form on the semis and roughs. Even though we now have less grass to mow we are still very busy around the course.
We are building several new tees around the course (18th ladies/winter, 4th medal, 5th medal) and extending others that suffer with excessive wear, the new tee on the 18th is now complete and we now just have to wait for the grass seed to grow! Other tees around the course are still a work in progress but are moving along well.
Greens and tees have now had an Autumn Winter feed applied to them and once I have time and weather conditions allow an Autumn Winter feed will also be applied to the approaches.
We have made a good start on flailing roughs around the course, these need to be finished before the end of the year. Unfortunately I don’t think we are going to get chance to collect all the cut grass, but despite this the roughs will still be better and more playable next year with the work that has been carried out on them over the last couple of months.
The leaves have really started to fall from the trees and it is a struggle to keep on top of collecting them as well as trying to continue with other maintenance tasks around the course and progress with the tee construction works. The next month or so we will continue to concentrate on leaf collection so that they don’t affect play too badly.
Unfortunately aeration work is something that I have not done as much of as I would have like to have got done as only greens and tees nave been verti drained so far this year but once we can free the tractor up from leaf collecting, flailing and construction works we will put it to work with the slitter and verti drain!
I would also like to say thankyou to all the seniors who have again started to come in on a Wednesday on the work party and been a big help with the leaf and stick collecting around the course.
Ben Rutter
Head Greenkeeper