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Tee To Green July

30th July 2025

Find out the latest from our Greenkeepers in this month's Tee to Green.

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The Downs course

This month, we have been working on the texture of the greens by verti-cutting. Verti-cutting is a maintenance practice that involves using vertical blades to thin out the turf, remove thatch and improve the overall health and playability of the putting surface. It helps create a smoother, faster and more consistent surface by addressing issues like thatch build-up, grain and uneven growth.

Verti-cutting aims to manage thatch, which is a layer of dead and living organic matter that can accumulate on greens, hindering air and water movement and affecting ball roll. It also helps to thin out the turf canopy, allowing for better light penetration and promoting upright growth.

We carried out this maintenance practice on two consecutive days and removed a trailer-load of lateral growth each day.

Following this process, and with our routine top-dressing programme, the average green speeds have increased this month, along with the trueness of the ball roll. Localised dry patch is currently an issue for us at this time of year, and we will continue to hand-water greens and collars throughout the season, alongside our monthly wetting agent and root drench programme.

We have also experienced another attack of Waitea patch disease on the putting surfaces, which required fungicide treatment to check its spread. This acted quickly and reduced the presence of disease pathogens. We have also added nitrogen to our foliar feed to promote recovery.

The front nine bunkers have had sand redistributed and some have been de-compacted to improve playability. Please note that this is a very time-consuming process, and in hot temperatures with little rain, the allocation of resources to this task is affected, as we need to prioritise hand-watering of the greens and other key areas. We aim to carry out the same work on the back nine bunkers in the coming weeks.

Fairways continue to be an issue, with more cracks forming and stones and flints surfacing, which have the potential to cause significant damage to our fairway mowers. We have therefore switched to a rotary mower with a slightly higher height of cut, to minimise damage to the cutting units and to maintain some definition during these dry conditions.

Moles have also been a problem this month, particularly on holes 2 and 15. These have now been dealt with, and we hope there will be limited activity in the coming weeks.

Irrigation issues continue to consume a large number of labour hours. Some areas take priority over others, and we are working to nurse the system through the next couple of months before work on the new system begins in September.

Lastly, thank you to everyone who attended the Downs at Dusk members’ event. It was a pleasure to see so many enthusiastic members learning about what we do on the course and what we are aiming to achieve with the ecology plan and the bees.

See you on the course.

Rob Dyer, Head Greenkeeper, The Downs course

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The Park course

Another hot and dry month but we did have a spell of rain over a weekend which has helped the course. Over Festival of Speed weekend it was exceptionally hot and we tried to keep the greens a bit wetter than we normally like due to the intense heat and how difficult it is getting around the course with Festival on to do any hand watering. The greens still struggled, and on Sunday when we left they were looking fine but come Monday we had severe dry patch on all the greens. With a week of hand watering with wetting agents tablets and also sprayed a wetting agent/soil feed the greens have recovered  and healthy as we head in to Club Championship week.

While the course was shut for Festival of Speed we took the opportunity to do a midseason greens maintenance. We applied 1 ton of sand dressing to each green followed by verti-drain to a depth of 200mm and then use the pro core with 10mm tines to a depth 125mm. This method worked the sand in to the profile and also the pro core reduced the impact (holes) of the verti-drain. The whole process was completed with an iron on the greens to help work sand in and smooth the surface. The greens were cut once more before we just left them to recover over the Festival.

Festival of Speed was the busiest one to date, over 30000 people a day accessing the Festival through The Park course. Everyone was well behaved it was the VIP car parks on 3rd/12th/13th that we had a few problems. Couple of days we had some cars doing donuts and then Sunday night we had reports a couple of Ferrari’s using the 13th fairway as a drift demo. Fortunately with the conditions very dry not much damage was done but is clearly visible. The dry conditions also helped with the 10th hole. When everything was removed the 10th look like the rest of the course. Because of the dry Spring/Summer we will terra rake all the fairways closer to the Autumn as well as carry on with our yearly verti-drain of all the fairways. So the decision was taken not to do any work on the 10th as we will be doing it in a couple of months.

For the next couple of weeks now we will focus on Club Championships week. The greens had a top dress this week and we will be doing a double verti-cut next week. These processes will help improve trueness and speeds. Heights of cut will be reduced to 3.2mm. Rest of course will be cut as normal and fairways, even though brown, will be cut to improve presentation.

The Copse

The Copse had a mini maintenance as well during the Festival. Similar to main greens but only a 10mm tine and no verti-drain. With the little rain we’ve had and our irrigation it’s recovering and presenting well. It continues to be busy and very popular which is pleasing to see. We now have junior camps on for 6 weeks and a few other clubs have booked the facility for the day.

Look forward to seeing you the course.

Scott Peterson, Head Greenkeeper, The Park course and The Copse.

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