Tee to Green - December

The Downs Course

December was a very wet month, with 178mm of rainfall over the month and 669mm in the last four months. The course has been extremely wet and we had to shut the course for three days in December as the course became dangerous to play and would damage the playing surfaces. I'm sure you can appreciate that The Downs Course rarely closes due to rain, therefore it just shows how much rain we have had to get to that situation. Although we have good free draining, the weather adds to the wear and tear of surfaces as the tee sheet becomes full each day.

However, what was nice to see throughout the month was the increased use of the front tees, due to the course playing long due to the weather. I feel it is very sensible to do this, not only will you enjoy your game more, but it also spreads the wear and tear from divots in certain areas of the fairways. However, what is still a bit disappointing is the amount of un-repaired pitch marks on the greens, especially the par 3’s. Please help look after the course by repairing any pitch marks on the greens.

Over the month, the 3^rd green was verti-drained, hollow cored, had root zone amendment applied, top dressed and brushed in by hand and had a light fertiliser applied to aid recovery. The 6^th green was planned to be started, but this will now have to be put back to January. A few of our winter projects were halted due to the weather, which included bunker construction on the 12^th and the 5^th Tees. 

We had an outbreak of disease on the greens in mid-December, unfortunately once the disease was spotted it rained for six days constantly, therefore we were unable to spray the fungicide needed to check the disease at that time. It was hard watching it spread, especially as we could do nothing about it, as our only fungicides left need a good 4-5 hours to dry onto the leaf for it to work and also have little to no wind to apply it accurately enough for it to work efficiency. However, we did find a window in the weather to spray and the disease has been checked, although there are now a few scars present, especially on those greens. We will either plug or seed these scars in due course.

The landscaping work which have been done on holes 3, 4 and 5 also came to a halt due to bad weather. These areas will be soiled and seeded once the weather permits and then roped off and protected. Please do not walk over these areas unless absolutely necessary. 

A problem area which has been concerning is the 18^th and the amount of worm castings on the fairway. The 18^th also lays very wet and is an extremely muddy part of the course. We have not been able to cut this fairway for quite a while now, mainly due to the rain and the worm casts being wet. We need to wait for the fairway to dry to brush and cut it otherwise the whole fairway will just turn to mud and will have a great impact on the increase of weeds. We are now looking into firming up the area with some aeration work and sand dressing to deter the worms. Although this may take some time to firm up, as it is a cultural way of correcting the issue. Like I have said in previous blogs, all chemicals now are worm friendly and there is now nothing on the market which is allowed to kill or irritate worms in any way. Therefore changing the soil profile to a more sandy loam will hopefully deter the worms, as they are not keen on moving through sand. Also the sand and aeration will improve the drainage.

The badgers are still causing some damage to the course, although the damage has been minimal this month. They have started to dig into one on the new bunkers on the left side of the 11^th fairway. This bunker is now very contaminated and will have the contamination removed and replaced when we add sand to the new bunkers.  

We look foward to seeing you on the course!

Rob Dyer, Head Greenkeeper, The Downs Course

The Park Course

Overall, it has been a great year on The Park Course but the weather was definitely challenging towards the end of the year. Unfortunately, due to consistent rain fall, The Park was closed for 13 days in December. The last four months of the year a total of 669mm of rain fell, that's just 80mm less than the whole of 2017. This was a complete turnaround from summer where the consistent high temperatures meant hand watering was a priority. The fairways received some damage due to the dry summer months. Over seeding all the fairways has seen a considerable improvement in grass coverage. If only we had known about the wet weather in the summer that was about to embark on us!

In 2019 we started our bunker renovations which has been a great project where we have been revetting, re-shaping and re-lining on holes 4, 5, 6 and 13. This work has really seen the course transform and this work will continue in 2020 and beyond.     

We are now working through our winter projects which includes a woodland clearance programme, raising tree canopies for better playability which also produces better air flow and light to the surface. Aiding our wild flower habitat management enabling them to flourish for us to all enjoy in the spring.

Throughout the year we did regular cutting re schemes to put some character and definition in the course.

Autumn is always a challenging time on the course with leaves! It is a very active time for disease to thrive and all our focus was on ensuring we didn't go into the winter months with scars on the greens, which through our green's aeration and maintenance programmes and using a preventative fungicide has kept the greens disease free.

As you can see it's been a very busy 2019 through the different seasons and we are exciting to see what this year brings. Fingers crossed for less severe weather conditions for 2020!                                                                                                                                                                

We look forward to seeing you in 2020!

Simon Berry, Head Greenkeeper, The Park Course