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Tee to Green May 2024

24th May 2024

The latest from our Head Greenkeepers...

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The Downs Course

Going into spring we have had a spring flush and now the grass is growing at a high rate.

Greens have differed in consistency during the morning and afternoons this month due to the uneven growth of the multi-cultural grasses and the poa grass plant trying to catch up to the height of the bent species. The bent species has thrived in the last year, which is pleasing to see. The greens in the morning are at a decent speed for this time of year, however they can slow down by over a foot with the day’s growth and foot traffic. Therefore, we have decided to verti cut the greens, which will remove the lateral growth and improve green speeds and trueness. With the addition of top dressing and rolling, the green speeds should improve over up the coming weeks and become more consistent over the site.

Tees, aprons and collars have received an organic fertiliser and now we will need to apply a growth regulator to control these areas too. The aprons grass coverage and turf quality is the best I have seen it in years, this is mainly down to the cultural practices and correct nutrition program we have now adopted.

Fairways also have good grass coverage, albeit a lot of lateral growth. After agronomist recommendations, we have dropped the heights of our fairway mowers by 2mm to remove some of this lateral growth, this was only done for one week, before cutting heights were raised back to normal. There will be a lot of grass clippings around for the next week whilst we blow off these areas with our turbo blowers. The fairways have always received a wetting agent, liquid feed and selective weedkiller treatment this month.

Unfortunately, we have had to delay our bunker top up schedule, as we are currently experiencing a shortage of sand. We have had to change supplier to source our current sand and this delivery should be with us at the beginning of June, where we will continue to top up the bunkers to the correct levels. We have also had some more wash down after heavy rain on some of the bunkers, which again has been repaired.

The long natural rough has started to grow and we have started to see some of the wild flowers appear. More and more should flourish in the upcoming weeks.

The 5th tee continues to struggle and we need to re-turf the front of it again and take a different approach to the nutritional side of the microclimate we have on that area of the course.

This area is showing high growth rate after the rough has been cut around it. Around the trees is 7 days worth of growth.
Wash down in newly topped up 6th bunkers
Orchids coming through in the natural rough on the left side of the 14th hole
The new nutrition program currently working well on the greens

Look forward to seeing you on the course

Rob Dyer, Head Greenkeeper, The Downs course

The Park Course & The Copse

This month has been busy getting ready to open The Copse. I wanted to dedicate this month’s blog to photos from the launch event of the facility on Thursday 16 May.

The Duke of Richmond opened the facility, which was then followed by a Short Game clinic with friend of Golf At Goodwood, Toby Tree, England International and Goodwood Junior, Drew Sykes and Team Goodwood’s Anna Freidinova which was presented by Sky Sports Presenter, Gabbie Partington. Afterwards, they then took to the Short Course to play a six-hole exhibition match which was won by Drew Sykes.

A huge congratulations to the team for all their hard work on The Copse and we look forward to seeing you out there very soon.

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Look forward to seeing you on the course!

Simon Berry, Head Greenkeeper, The Park course