JULY UPDATE
Firstly, apologies for this one being late. Between being on a 5 day holiday to Ireland and being so busy, I've not had the time to do this.
This past month has been very wet, temperatures rarely above 14.c, it's been testing to say the least. We have had a few breakdowns, fairway mower was shearing the drive spindles (strange one), our 4500 has had a few running issues and also a burst hose. As if we aren't busy enough with being understaffed, I'm spending as much time in the sheds as I am on the course!
In saying that, the course is playing really well. It's presented very nicely with only some minor areas that we are struggling to keep on top of. The greens are running nicely, although there is a continued flowering of the Poa resulting in seed heads. It's without a doubt the longest we have had seed heads but surfaces are putting very true despite not ironing the greens at all.
The Symbio program continues to impress. Our soil profile is very clean in comparison to this time last year. It's more uniformed and thatch is greatly reduced resulting in some firm surfaces. Dressings are fortnightly and very light now also. Root mass has seen the biggest improvement, with roots now consistently over 8" deep and I'd guesstimate on around a 30% increase in mass which is only going to help in the long run.
This coming month, we will be looking to pencil tine the greens to around 8". Disturbance as always will be kept to an absolute minimum. Dressings will continue and applications of seaweed should see us through the last of the playing season.
Divoting remains a headache but thankfully there are some volunteers being rounded up to carry out some divoting duty on the worse areas. All help is greatly appreciated.
That's about it for July, all the best and fingers crossed we get some sort of 'Indian Summer'.
Friday, 31 July 2015
Saturday, 20 June 2015
June Update
This past month has been one very testing time with weather more suited to polar bears than maintaining a golf course in Scotland. Temperatures have struggled to just about reach double figures, winds have been constant and we've had very little direct sunlight. Wet cuts are the norm just now, but having said that, our new Jacobsen Eclipse 322 is performing brilliantly with a quality of finish I've not seen from ANY machine on greens, a real top class bit of kit and is so versatile.
The greens are performing very nicely, firm and true. They've had a good amount of BarFescue drilled in to them and it's all up and thriving. I am also very happy with the condition of the bent and fescue that were in them prior, while we are also keeping Poa on the check by hitting it with Primo. The Symbio program is still in its infancy on our greens, but as I alluded to already, the condition of the finer grasses are a real encouragement, as is the soil profile which is looking cleaner and more friable already. All in all, I'm extremely content with where we are just now with regards to putting surfaces.
In other work, machines are being put through the mill just now. We seem to be cutting constantly and the course is showing no signs as yet to 'browning off'. Rough is a major headache, with being cut every week at least once to minimise debris being left. Fairways have a good coverage, with the 5th and 17th still showing signs of salt damage from the submersions they've had in the last 3 years by the North Sea. These will be fertilised shortly to strengthen the sward and to aid recovery.
There is no major works planned in the coming month, although aeration a possibility with the way the weather has been, that will most likely be in the form of a liquid aeration rather than mechanical. Dressings will continue to go on light, and verti-cutting will be light and on a green to green basis.
That's about it for another month, I will post a few photos in the coming few days that may interest those in the know and hopefully give an insight of what is being achieved to those who might not be up to speed.
You can also visit our Facebook page here
This past month has been one very testing time with weather more suited to polar bears than maintaining a golf course in Scotland. Temperatures have struggled to just about reach double figures, winds have been constant and we've had very little direct sunlight. Wet cuts are the norm just now, but having said that, our new Jacobsen Eclipse 322 is performing brilliantly with a quality of finish I've not seen from ANY machine on greens, a real top class bit of kit and is so versatile.
The greens are performing very nicely, firm and true. They've had a good amount of BarFescue drilled in to them and it's all up and thriving. I am also very happy with the condition of the bent and fescue that were in them prior, while we are also keeping Poa on the check by hitting it with Primo. The Symbio program is still in its infancy on our greens, but as I alluded to already, the condition of the finer grasses are a real encouragement, as is the soil profile which is looking cleaner and more friable already. All in all, I'm extremely content with where we are just now with regards to putting surfaces.
In other work, machines are being put through the mill just now. We seem to be cutting constantly and the course is showing no signs as yet to 'browning off'. Rough is a major headache, with being cut every week at least once to minimise debris being left. Fairways have a good coverage, with the 5th and 17th still showing signs of salt damage from the submersions they've had in the last 3 years by the North Sea. These will be fertilised shortly to strengthen the sward and to aid recovery.
There is no major works planned in the coming month, although aeration a possibility with the way the weather has been, that will most likely be in the form of a liquid aeration rather than mechanical. Dressings will continue to go on light, and verti-cutting will be light and on a green to green basis.
That's about it for another month, I will post a few photos in the coming few days that may interest those in the know and hopefully give an insight of what is being achieved to those who might not be up to speed.
You can also visit our Facebook page here
Wednesday, 20 May 2015
May Update
It has been yet another manic month here at Golspie. The staff shuffle left us with just two staff for most of the month and in that time we had two Opens and club competitions to deal with. Our weather has picked up, staying relatively damp but day temperatures picked up to more seasonal averages so our young seedlings are now thriving and have recovered the greens very well.
So far this month we have been concentrating on the general tidiness so cutting has taken priority. The course definition is looking really nice and although heights are still to be reduced, the course is playing very well. The greens are completely recovered with the exception of the seaward side (3-6) that took a hammering last year and were submerged twice by the sea. These are improving and are around 95% of the way to be fully recovered. With the weather having been noncompliant towards recovery, we had to wait a good 6wks before we were able to apply our lawn sand which just went on this past Monday. This will harden our young seedlings and set them up well for the coming season. We've been hand rubbing seed in to some blemishes on some greens which is a sign that we are getting very picky and they must be recovering well!
This coming month, starting on Monday, we will be running our overseeder with straight BarFescue on a double pass, some that are thinner will get three passes, and this will do away with the 'maintenance week' in August. The seed is better in the ground than sitting in a bag in the shed! The management decided that it would be a good idea to give as long a period as possible of uninterrupted play for members and visitors through the bulk of the playing season. With that in mind, seeding done now should recover and germinate very quickly and it will then leave some pencil tining, dressing and the odd verticut to contend with for the summer. Following the seeding we will pencil time them to 8" and then dress them up and that'll be the last of the recovery works and it'll be the usual regime of fortnightly dusting of dressings and pencil tining every 6-8wks.
The weed killing will commence this month, with the common daisy being our biggest nemesis. These will be hit the week commencing 1/6/15, if the traditional Golspie winds are favourable. Divoting remains a priority so if members feel inclined, please come and help out on that front.
Lastly, today we are taking delivery of our brand new Jacobsen Eclipse 322 Hybrid greens mower. It's been a long wait but we are very much looking forward to getting this machine out on the course and it will give us a great deal of flexibility in our maintenance regimes. This is mainly down to the adjustable clip rate that means we can increase or decrease the spin rate of the cylinders to coincide with the condition of the greens. If they are lush we can increase the clip rate to almost give a double cut appearance and remove more grass. Likewise if they are drying out, we can decrease them to take off very little and just give them a gentle tidy up. A SUPERB piece of kit and one which will be a great help out here to us as it will also free up our aged Toro 3250 for verticut units, top dressing and also cutting collars.
That's about it this month, fingers crossed the sun starts shining and we can all get out and enjoy the course.
Cheers
Alexander
Head Greenkeeper.
It has been yet another manic month here at Golspie. The staff shuffle left us with just two staff for most of the month and in that time we had two Opens and club competitions to deal with. Our weather has picked up, staying relatively damp but day temperatures picked up to more seasonal averages so our young seedlings are now thriving and have recovered the greens very well.
So far this month we have been concentrating on the general tidiness so cutting has taken priority. The course definition is looking really nice and although heights are still to be reduced, the course is playing very well. The greens are completely recovered with the exception of the seaward side (3-6) that took a hammering last year and were submerged twice by the sea. These are improving and are around 95% of the way to be fully recovered. With the weather having been noncompliant towards recovery, we had to wait a good 6wks before we were able to apply our lawn sand which just went on this past Monday. This will harden our young seedlings and set them up well for the coming season. We've been hand rubbing seed in to some blemishes on some greens which is a sign that we are getting very picky and they must be recovering well!
This coming month, starting on Monday, we will be running our overseeder with straight BarFescue on a double pass, some that are thinner will get three passes, and this will do away with the 'maintenance week' in August. The seed is better in the ground than sitting in a bag in the shed! The management decided that it would be a good idea to give as long a period as possible of uninterrupted play for members and visitors through the bulk of the playing season. With that in mind, seeding done now should recover and germinate very quickly and it will then leave some pencil tining, dressing and the odd verticut to contend with for the summer. Following the seeding we will pencil time them to 8" and then dress them up and that'll be the last of the recovery works and it'll be the usual regime of fortnightly dusting of dressings and pencil tining every 6-8wks.
The weed killing will commence this month, with the common daisy being our biggest nemesis. These will be hit the week commencing 1/6/15, if the traditional Golspie winds are favourable. Divoting remains a priority so if members feel inclined, please come and help out on that front.
Lastly, today we are taking delivery of our brand new Jacobsen Eclipse 322 Hybrid greens mower. It's been a long wait but we are very much looking forward to getting this machine out on the course and it will give us a great deal of flexibility in our maintenance regimes. This is mainly down to the adjustable clip rate that means we can increase or decrease the spin rate of the cylinders to coincide with the condition of the greens. If they are lush we can increase the clip rate to almost give a double cut appearance and remove more grass. Likewise if they are drying out, we can decrease them to take off very little and just give them a gentle tidy up. A SUPERB piece of kit and one which will be a great help out here to us as it will also free up our aged Toro 3250 for verticut units, top dressing and also cutting collars.
That's about it this month, fingers crossed the sun starts shining and we can all get out and enjoy the course.
Cheers
Alexander
Head Greenkeeper.
Wednesday, 22 April 2015
April 2015
This month has been a busy one getting back in to the cutting regime. The course is now taking shape for the coming season, definition is pretty good already and the greens are recovering very well from the fusarium scarring.
We have had a staff shuffle, with one being laid off and my Deputy leaving to go to Royal Dornoch as an assistant greenkeeper. We interviewed two impressive candidates to replace Craig and have a Dornoch native starting when he returns from his travels in New Zealand. We wish Craig all the very best in his new position at Royal Dornoch and also Stuart, our labourer, who is also starting at Royal Dornoch for the summer. Both will be a credit to their team over there. This season we are back to 3 staff so I'm sure that will present many challenges in trying to maintain the course to previous standards. As usual though, I'm sure we will rise to the challenge and ensure surfaces are as good as anywhere around during the main playing season.
On the greens, we have applied more dressing at the start of the month, taking us to over 100Tonnes of sand dressing for this year already. Surfaces are very firm and there's a great coverage of Bent in there. We overseeded just over a week ago with a Vredo borrowed from Royal Dornoch. It's a great machine and very quick. We had 250kg drilled in to the greens, BarFescue and also Bar2. We will follow up with our own seeder (Charterhouse) in May, June and possibly July. We are making a very conscious effort to get as much fescue in to them as possible to take advantage of the thinner sward we have at the start of this season. Dressings will now be far lighter, a little less frequent (fortnightly) and the focus now will be on establishing the fescues in to the sward and hopefully increasing year round playability.
Our new greens mower will be arriving any day now, a Jacobsen Eclipse 322. I'm very much looking forward to this true hybrid machine arriving as it is extremely versatile in terms of clip rate and gives us good options for our greens program. It uses less than half the diesel of our current GM3250 and offers great savings over a season. Our current GM3250 will be used for surrounds, with the added bonus of being a backup for greens, verti-cutting and also for use after top dressing.
This coming month we will be starting the weed killing on the fairways, tees and surrounds. Divoting remains a never ending job but thankfully 4 members volunteered and made a start on the fairways which was much appreciated. Our feeding program on the greens and surrounds will start, as well as starting our wetting agent program too. We plan to run the vertidrain with 8mm tines over the greens later this month.
Jack, our apprentice, finishes his college training at Elmwood College next month. He is with us for another year to hone his skills and brush up on his knowledge of the job.
That's about it for this month. Enjoy your golf
Alexander.
This month has been a busy one getting back in to the cutting regime. The course is now taking shape for the coming season, definition is pretty good already and the greens are recovering very well from the fusarium scarring.
We have had a staff shuffle, with one being laid off and my Deputy leaving to go to Royal Dornoch as an assistant greenkeeper. We interviewed two impressive candidates to replace Craig and have a Dornoch native starting when he returns from his travels in New Zealand. We wish Craig all the very best in his new position at Royal Dornoch and also Stuart, our labourer, who is also starting at Royal Dornoch for the summer. Both will be a credit to their team over there. This season we are back to 3 staff so I'm sure that will present many challenges in trying to maintain the course to previous standards. As usual though, I'm sure we will rise to the challenge and ensure surfaces are as good as anywhere around during the main playing season.
On the greens, we have applied more dressing at the start of the month, taking us to over 100Tonnes of sand dressing for this year already. Surfaces are very firm and there's a great coverage of Bent in there. We overseeded just over a week ago with a Vredo borrowed from Royal Dornoch. It's a great machine and very quick. We had 250kg drilled in to the greens, BarFescue and also Bar2. We will follow up with our own seeder (Charterhouse) in May, June and possibly July. We are making a very conscious effort to get as much fescue in to them as possible to take advantage of the thinner sward we have at the start of this season. Dressings will now be far lighter, a little less frequent (fortnightly) and the focus now will be on establishing the fescues in to the sward and hopefully increasing year round playability.
Our new greens mower will be arriving any day now, a Jacobsen Eclipse 322. I'm very much looking forward to this true hybrid machine arriving as it is extremely versatile in terms of clip rate and gives us good options for our greens program. It uses less than half the diesel of our current GM3250 and offers great savings over a season. Our current GM3250 will be used for surrounds, with the added bonus of being a backup for greens, verti-cutting and also for use after top dressing.
This coming month we will be starting the weed killing on the fairways, tees and surrounds. Divoting remains a never ending job but thankfully 4 members volunteered and made a start on the fairways which was much appreciated. Our feeding program on the greens and surrounds will start, as well as starting our wetting agent program too. We plan to run the vertidrain with 8mm tines over the greens later this month.
Jack, our apprentice, finishes his college training at Elmwood College next month. He is with us for another year to hone his skills and brush up on his knowledge of the job.
That's about it for this month. Enjoy your golf
Alexander.
Wednesday, 25 March 2015
March 2015
It is hard to believe that the winter is near over but there is a few signs that Spring is here, most noticeably is the warmth in the sun these last few days, in fact we are almost in t-shirts at work today.
This past month we have been very busy getting the last of our winter program finished. All the bunkers were successfully revetted and are now back in play after us spending a day screening around 30 tonnes of dune sand for the bases. The last couple of tasks on our winter program were the redesigning of the 3rd tees and also the leveling of the 12th tee. The 3rd has come in very well and will look great when it has a bit of time to settle down. We reduced the teeing area to around half, with separate yellow and white tees. These are linked via a path and are marramed up on one side, with the other having been landscaped and had whins and broom transplanted with the immediate border to the path being heather. The medal tee was raised around 2ft and is a circular shape, reducing maintenance time and 'drawing the eye' away from the fact that the original tee was pointing some 25yds right of the fairway! We were going to install steps up on to the yellow tee but money still being very tight and the season fast approaching, we opted for a season long measure of a turf path with rubber matting reinforcement. Come October, we are aiming to install the steps.
The greens are continuing to recover following a horrendous bout of fusarium at the tail end of last year. The committee made the decision to deny the purchase of fungicide despite the warning that it could wipe out all the surfaces. Unfortunately, when the go-ahead was given, the damage was done so surfaces just now are poor. The recovery is slow due to the time of year but there is a noticeable improvement to them in the last 2wks. We have been top-dressing the greens with pure sand for most of the winter, and in the last 5wks alone we have put on over 60 tonnes. Our seed has just arrived today, BarFescue and Bar2 from Barenbrug. We decided to stick with Barenbrug after a successful couple of seasons using it, so this will be going in the ground in a couple of weeks if the temperatures continue to rise. Our soil temperature is still a little too low for us to be doing it yet so we will continue to dress greens to give a playable surface in the meantime and will keep an eye on the soil temperature. Although the greens are far from ideal just now, when the seed is in and germinated, it will have very little competition so the success of the seedlings should be higher than in previous years. We are very hopeful that the greens will benefit hugely from the early season remedial works that are being undertaken and along with sound agronomic practices in the coming months, they should have a good coverage of fine grasses for the season which will add to the year round playability in the years ahead.
The machines have all been out on the course giving everything a cut. Fairways were cut for the first time since November, some were widened and re-shaped also. The surrounds have been getting heavy dressed since February and are getting their first cut tomorrow. Tees were all verti-drained and will also be cut tomorrow. The semi has been cut and re-shaped, as has the rough.
All in all, it has been yet another very busy winter but gladly we are pretty much ready for the Spring Open on Saturday, with snow forecast we will need to keep our eye on it.
Thanks again for reading and hope that you all have a successful season playing on the links.
Alexander
This past month we have been very busy getting the last of our winter program finished. All the bunkers were successfully revetted and are now back in play after us spending a day screening around 30 tonnes of dune sand for the bases. The last couple of tasks on our winter program were the redesigning of the 3rd tees and also the leveling of the 12th tee. The 3rd has come in very well and will look great when it has a bit of time to settle down. We reduced the teeing area to around half, with separate yellow and white tees. These are linked via a path and are marramed up on one side, with the other having been landscaped and had whins and broom transplanted with the immediate border to the path being heather. The medal tee was raised around 2ft and is a circular shape, reducing maintenance time and 'drawing the eye' away from the fact that the original tee was pointing some 25yds right of the fairway! We were going to install steps up on to the yellow tee but money still being very tight and the season fast approaching, we opted for a season long measure of a turf path with rubber matting reinforcement. Come October, we are aiming to install the steps.
The greens are continuing to recover following a horrendous bout of fusarium at the tail end of last year. The committee made the decision to deny the purchase of fungicide despite the warning that it could wipe out all the surfaces. Unfortunately, when the go-ahead was given, the damage was done so surfaces just now are poor. The recovery is slow due to the time of year but there is a noticeable improvement to them in the last 2wks. We have been top-dressing the greens with pure sand for most of the winter, and in the last 5wks alone we have put on over 60 tonnes. Our seed has just arrived today, BarFescue and Bar2 from Barenbrug. We decided to stick with Barenbrug after a successful couple of seasons using it, so this will be going in the ground in a couple of weeks if the temperatures continue to rise. Our soil temperature is still a little too low for us to be doing it yet so we will continue to dress greens to give a playable surface in the meantime and will keep an eye on the soil temperature. Although the greens are far from ideal just now, when the seed is in and germinated, it will have very little competition so the success of the seedlings should be higher than in previous years. We are very hopeful that the greens will benefit hugely from the early season remedial works that are being undertaken and along with sound agronomic practices in the coming months, they should have a good coverage of fine grasses for the season which will add to the year round playability in the years ahead.
The machines have all been out on the course giving everything a cut. Fairways were cut for the first time since November, some were widened and re-shaped also. The surrounds have been getting heavy dressed since February and are getting their first cut tomorrow. Tees were all verti-drained and will also be cut tomorrow. The semi has been cut and re-shaped, as has the rough.
All in all, it has been yet another very busy winter but gladly we are pretty much ready for the Spring Open on Saturday, with snow forecast we will need to keep our eye on it.
Thanks again for reading and hope that you all have a successful season playing on the links.
Alexander
Friday, 6 February 2015
February 2015
Hello,
Welcome to the first of 2015's monthly blogs.
This month we are back to the rebuilding works after the hurricane force winds that dropped so many trees and then the hard winter weather for the last two weeks. All our bunkers are now completed and work on levelling the tees is due to start this coming Monday. As you will be aware, some of the tees are terribly uneven and with this, we have 5 sets of the worst tees planned, assuming the weather stays kind of course. The first of these to get done will be the 3rd because there is a lot of landscaping to be done. The surfaces will be levelled and the bulk of the landscaping will be done, leaving just the planting of marram etc to be done in the harder weather. We will then move on to the 2nd, 12th 16th and also the 14th if we have time.
There is a program in place that's been agreed with the committee to reinstate the playing surfaces on the greens after being hit very hard with disease. The committee made the decision to deny the purchase of fungicide as funds were low in September. I informed them of the need to spray just prior to the celebrity golf, this was declined and it was left to run rampant as conditions were so favourable to aid the spread of it. This then resulted as you know, in extremely poor surfaces for the whole of the winter.
Although we've had some recovery, with it being so cold recently, recovery will not be sufficient to produce any sort of quality surfaces in the spring. Indeed, I reckon it will be mid to late May before the greens are up to the required standard, and that is dependent on favourable weather in the early part of Spring. When temperatures are suitable, we will be overseeding the greens with around 600kg of seed, this will be a mix of BarFescue and Bar2. Greens will be cored prior to seeding, then dressed after the overseeder has been completed. We will then hopefully have sufficient germination by Mid-May to then get the greens up to a decent standard. Heights will be kept around 5mm for most of the season to encourage successful establishment of the young seedlings. Although the disease was a blow to the conditioning of the greens, we now have a great opportunity to get some very desirable bent/fescue grasses established instead of the predominant poa surfaces there were prior. This in turn will lead to a far better golfing experience for everyone that plays here in the future.
We will also be signing up to a Symbio feeding program designed specifically for our greens. This will lead to the turf being less fertiliser reliant which should promote the fine grasses as well as reduce future disease outbreaks. This should also reduce annual costings with less fertiliser, fungicide and also be more environmentally friendly so it's win win really.
As always, any questions are welcome and we are always willing to discuss any concerns you have or issues you need clarified.
Many thanks
Alexander
Head Greenkeeper.
Welcome to the first of 2015's monthly blogs.
This month we are back to the rebuilding works after the hurricane force winds that dropped so many trees and then the hard winter weather for the last two weeks. All our bunkers are now completed and work on levelling the tees is due to start this coming Monday. As you will be aware, some of the tees are terribly uneven and with this, we have 5 sets of the worst tees planned, assuming the weather stays kind of course. The first of these to get done will be the 3rd because there is a lot of landscaping to be done. The surfaces will be levelled and the bulk of the landscaping will be done, leaving just the planting of marram etc to be done in the harder weather. We will then move on to the 2nd, 12th 16th and also the 14th if we have time.
There is a program in place that's been agreed with the committee to reinstate the playing surfaces on the greens after being hit very hard with disease. The committee made the decision to deny the purchase of fungicide as funds were low in September. I informed them of the need to spray just prior to the celebrity golf, this was declined and it was left to run rampant as conditions were so favourable to aid the spread of it. This then resulted as you know, in extremely poor surfaces for the whole of the winter.
Although we've had some recovery, with it being so cold recently, recovery will not be sufficient to produce any sort of quality surfaces in the spring. Indeed, I reckon it will be mid to late May before the greens are up to the required standard, and that is dependent on favourable weather in the early part of Spring. When temperatures are suitable, we will be overseeding the greens with around 600kg of seed, this will be a mix of BarFescue and Bar2. Greens will be cored prior to seeding, then dressed after the overseeder has been completed. We will then hopefully have sufficient germination by Mid-May to then get the greens up to a decent standard. Heights will be kept around 5mm for most of the season to encourage successful establishment of the young seedlings. Although the disease was a blow to the conditioning of the greens, we now have a great opportunity to get some very desirable bent/fescue grasses established instead of the predominant poa surfaces there were prior. This in turn will lead to a far better golfing experience for everyone that plays here in the future.
We will also be signing up to a Symbio feeding program designed specifically for our greens. This will lead to the turf being less fertiliser reliant which should promote the fine grasses as well as reduce future disease outbreaks. This should also reduce annual costings with less fertiliser, fungicide and also be more environmentally friendly so it's win win really.
As always, any questions are welcome and we are always willing to discuss any concerns you have or issues you need clarified.
Many thanks
Alexander
Head Greenkeeper.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)