Greens Update - Jan 2025
Happy New Year to you all. It seems a long time ago celebrating bringing in the new year doesn’t it? There has been a lot going on over the last few weeks so I thought it best to update you on what the greens staff have been doing during what has been a pretty challenging month of weather so far. As I type we have had 108mm of rain and snow in January so far (last year we had 121mm for the whole month) and with a deep freeze added in for good measure, we have tried to focus our attention on some of the winter work needed to be carried out, ably assisted by the working party who have been carrying out some of their own projects during this time.
Figure 1: Icy conditions, topped with snow | Figure 2: The bottom land and other areas were flooded, after 60mm of rain fell at the start of the month, before the freeze.
Firstly, just to mention the greens. The aim with the greens is always to arrive at the Christmas holidays with clean surfaces, free from disease. In the main this has been very successful, through correctly timed fungicide applications through the autumn, and limiting the feeding to the minimum required for the time of year. We proved how successful this strategy was by using the chipping green on the practice ground as a control green, meaning it didn’t receive the fungicide. This has some disease on it, while the rest of the greens are clean.
Figure 3: Fresh New Year cut for the greens after all the bad weather.
The greens will receive a granular feed next week to aid their recovery from the challenging weather and help them kick on towards spring. All the tees and approaches were given this feed before Christmas, and they are having a well earned rest during this time. The traffic control measures in place are really helping the approaches to recover well.
During the frozen conditions, are thoughts turned to some of the tree work needed to be carried out. As we all know, shade cast onto the playing surfaces can have such a detrimental effect on their condition and health. Just think about how poor the 2nd and 6th fairways are, due to always being cast in shade, especially in the winter where any sunlight on the surfaces is a must. The 12th green has improved massively already since a lot of the shade was removed by tree removal last year.
So the two areas we have focussed on were the 17th green and the 12th hole. The 17th green had lots of shade on it, with the majority of it coming from the tired looking silver birches to the right of the green.
Figure 4: Trees to the right of the green removed. Figure 5: After trees removed.
The only shade coming onto the 17th green now during the winter comes from the large conifers behind the 8th green.
On the 12th hole, the carry to the green always seems to be wet and again this is mainly due to it not being able to dry down significantly due to lack of sunlight and airflow.
The rhododendrons were described in our recent Ecology report by James Hutchinson, our expert ecology advisor, as an environmental disaster. These were the main cause of the shade issues and have all been removed. The before and after, and the changes in shade can be seen above. This will allow much needed light and airflow to the area and we should see a much needed improvement in the quality of the 12th hole as a result over the coming years. We appreciate that there may be disappointment that these have been removed, but for the long-term health of the hole, it needed to be done. For a deeper dive into why rhododendrons are not the best option to have so close to the course, please check out this article.
The greens staff have worked hard to remove as much debris as possible from the area, with only a few stumps to come out at the tee end. This whole area, including the area to the left of the competition tee, will be rotovated in the spring and a woodland wildflower mix will be sown into it. This should improve the optics of the whole area.
Another area which needed some attention was the entrance to the path down to the 13th green. During periods of heavy rainfall the path is consistently washed away, especially when water flows down from the top of the path. We have built a structure using attenuation crates, which provides a water holding capacity for the excessive water, and acts like a storm drain as it is connected to pipework underground.
This has been installed at the top of the path with some surrounding finishing work needed to complete the job. The path has also been repaired again, after the recent heavy rainfall. Hopefully this will help to avoid some of the large amounts of water running down the path.
The long term winter bunker project has been slow going this term. It’s a multi stage project, from initial turf removal, checking drainage, removal of old contaminated sand, to initial shaping. Then we use a bit of the sand to create the bowl effect before the bunker mat liner is laid.
This week we have been spent time creating those shelves that the liner is pinned into, as well as creating the bowl effect. The liner is due to be installed next week, and once in the outside perimeter final shaping commences and turfing is finished.
The hole for the new swing studio’s foundations has been dug last week. We have come across some old electricity cables which are being investigated, and there were plenty of tree roots in there from where the trees were removed at the edge of the car park. This work is ongoing as the club await finalising of planning permission, which is subject to the latest bat/bird survey being carried out as requested.
The working party have also been busy picking up from where they left off with work at the 17th path and 18th tee steps. Their assistance is greatly appreciated by everyone I’m sure. On the 17th path a new drain is being installed down the right hand side of the path, which again is being used to catch storm water coming over from the 10th and across the front of the 17th green. Huge thanks to working party for a great job!
As you can see, there are lots of things going on and we will continue to finish all these jobs off as quickly as possible, albeit when the weather plays ball. Enjoy your game.
