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Tee To Green June

23rd June 2025

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

Invitational Pro-Am Downs Course 2019

The Downs Course

As we move into the heart of the golfing season, the team at The Downs Course has been hard at work preparing the playing surfaces for optimal performance and aesthetics. The last month has seen continued momentum in our maintenance programme, with a focus on plant health, playability, and consistency across the course. We have had a decent splash of rain which started to green up the course, but now have been hit with another dry spell, with temperatures hitting 30 degrees Celsius in the 3rd week of June.

We’ve applied a granular fertiliser to all tees and aprons to encourage strong, uniform growth and improve colour and resilience. This feeds the plant from the roots up and supports the high wear areas that see regular foot traffic and divot damage.
The fairways have received a carefully balanced foliar feed – a liquid nutrient application sprayed directly onto the leaf. This fast-acting method gives us immediate results in colour and plant vitality while reducing the environmental footprint and potential leaching that comes with heavier granular applications.

Sand dressing on the greens has continued as part of our regular programme to maintain smoothness, firmness, and consistency. These light and frequent topdressings help dilute thatch, aid surface drainage, and contribute to firmer playing conditions. We remain committed to this vital work to provide true putting surfaces all year round.

The team has also focused on improving the consistency of our bunkers. This month we’ve adjusted sand levels and redistributed material to improve both appearance and playability. However, in the last few weeks we have had to smooth rake the bunkers, as putting a tine rake into them just brings up the stones and chalk from underneath causing contamination issues. The bunkers were only lined with upside down turf when the bunker project renovation happened 5 years ago and now that it is degrading it's starting to cause an issue.

The greens are due a granular fertiliser feed this week, which will aid in plant health and keep the greens where we want them. Greens generally have been pretty good, with good trueness and speed recorded. However, some irrigation issues have caused some spots on the greens to burn off and this has had to be addressed with regular hand watering with the addition of wetting agents, to move the water through into the soil profile.

See you on the course.

Rob Dyer, Head Greenkeeper, The Downs Course

Looking over to the 2nd fairway
Definition on the 15th hole complex
Fairways improving on colour with rain and foilar feed.
Redistribution of sand in bunkers
Greens becoming more consistent with trying new chemistry
Wild flowers popping up all over the place.
Looking back towards the gazebo from the 8th green
1st tee now being hand cut

The Park Course

Firstly this month I’m delighted to say that The Park Masterplan Phase 1 has now been completed. All the bunkers are open for play as well as the 4th tee. Huge thanks to the team for all their hard work getting to this stage and to The Downs team for us helping out when needed. For Phase 1, 2500m2 of turf has been laid, not including the bases of the bunkers, and 30 tonnes of sand added to the new bunkers. All done in some challenging conditions:

Driest spring on record beating 1976, 2nd sunniest spring on record and warmest spring on record. Keeping established turf alive is challenging enough let alone new turf but with a lot of hose pipes and hand watering the new bunkers and tee look amazing. This has now highlighted how bad the old bunkers are and we can’t wait to get going with Phase 2 and 3.

We’ve had a few rainy days which greened the fairways up and took some strain of the irrigation system but no were near enough. Now we are just coming out heatwave and although a bit cooler the winds have picked up. This plays havoc on the sprinklers, especially on tees where they are smaller heads so pressure is reduced and struggle in wind. Hence there are a few tees struggling. Greens are holding up well but we are hand watering these none stop. We’ve continued with our soil and foliar feeds and now top dressing 10 ton of sand once every 2 weeks. Shortly we will be doing maintenance on the greens while we are shut for Festival of Speed. 1 ton of sand applied then verti-drained with 12inch tines and followed by 10mm tine with the procore. We will then brush the sand in and iron and have full recovery by the time we open again. Tees will also be verti-drained after the greens.

Not many clubs are fortunate enough to have a maintenance in June but also I can’t think of many that have a Super Car paddock on their 10th fairway in July. Yes, Festival of Speed is just round the corner. Hugely important for the Estate and a world class event but it does impact the course quite a lot. You’ve been hearing me moan about how dry it is, but we hope it’ stays dry for the build and breakdown of the event as well as on the days. It can pour down once it’s all cleared. As soon as the breakdown is completed we will analyse what damaged has occurred and what our recovery process will be.

As mentioned above about the old bunkers we are aware we need to top up some or move sand around. This will happen over the course of the next few weeks now that Phase 1 is completed.

The Copse

The Copse has been busy this month with Junior camps and general play which is pleasing to see. We’ve been hand watering a lot on the greens as these struggle more in the heat compared to main greens. Overall it’s presenting well with a few dry areas and drain lines burning off. Pitch marks are a problem so if you are using The Copse please use a pitch mark repairer which can be obtained from the shop.

See you on the course.

Scott Peterson, Head Greenkeeper, The Park Course and The Copse

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