Monthly Course Report

NOV2013

October Review

October turned out to be a wet month registering over 120mm of rain; this caused some of our plans to have to be placed on the back burner as the ground was too wet to verti-drain, if we had continued it would have caused more harm.  One of the biggest problems this time of year are leaves, we are blowing leaves daily from the greens, tees and fairways.  Our normal practice is to blow the main surfaces, such as greens and tees and mulch them up with our semi rough mower, however, with the ground conditions the way they are, we haven’t done so yet, but we are hoping to do some pretty soon.  With such a wet month, we have introduced roping-off to some areas around the course.  After the vandalism to the 1^st tee, we took the opportunity to widen some of the path.  We also re-turfed some areas around the tee.  You may have noticed we have installed a new bridge on the 2^nd fairway and the two old sleeper bridges have been removed and the areas where the bridges were have been re-turfed.  We have also widened the right hand bridge on the 11^th fairway, so it is wide enough to take a buggy across.  Cutting has been reduced this month with the combination of the wet weather and the lower temperatures coming in.  Also, with the amount of rain we have had, it has made it difficult for us to maintain the bunkers with them suffering from wash out and compaction. 

November

Greens:

We hope to continue our aeration programme as and when the weather permits, we will apply a soil amendment; this will help the greens through the winter.  We will also spray a worm suppressant. We will carry on cutting greens at 5mm through the winter months.

Tees:

The tees will be cut as and when we can.  Tees will be put on mats when deemed necessary.

Surrounds:

This month will see some further areas ‘roped off’ as part of our traffic management programme.  We will continue aeration to our surrounds and continue re-turfing some of our bare areas in and around the greens.  Cutting will continue as and when the weather will allow.

Fairways:

We will continue to verti-drain fairways as and when the weather and ground condition permit. We will carry on divoting fairways.  Cutting will be carried out when weather allows.  Bare areas on fairways will be re-turfed.

Other:

We will continue chasing leaves this month keeping ditches tidy and any other areas that are heavy with leaves.  Further areas of rough will be cut back, bunkers will be de-stoned and sand movement will be corrected when weather allows.  We will be re-turfing areas around the course where there are bare of damaged areas.  Some path ends will be either re-turfed or have astro turf laid to repair damaged areas.  Some drainage lines will be lifted and levelled.  Hopefully, weather and leaves permitting, we will start the filling and re-shaping of the 15^th fairway bunker.

Chris Webb Course Manager