The Downs Course

Looking back at my June blog, I wrote about the tough conditions we had experienced. Looking back now I think I would have taken that month over this month. We have had minimal rain, adding to hot, humid temperatures, with a few days hitting the mid 30’s on the course. To put this in in perspective, in the drought of 2018 we had 472mm rainfall YTD. This year we have had 267mm YTD.

From an agronomy point of view, we are in a lot better place with the greens we had in 2018. Moisture on the 16^th green during July 2018 was down to 2% and most of the greens were brown and dormant. This was due to lack of water resource across the estate. Today the 16^th green is at 25% with some isolated dry areas. Although the new pipeline for the estates water is not yet complete, we have had a reasonable amount of water to keep the surfaces as healthy as possible. Due to the hot weather predicted we took precautions for greens health, in case water resource became an issue. Although we cannot yet water at full capacity, ie fairways, walk offs etc, we have manged to keep areas greener than in 2018.  Communication across the estates departments using the water supply has proven extremely beneficial this year. Precautions such as raising the height of cut and stopping sand dustings has improved the health of the greens, unfortunately this has slightly affected performance, with the greens becoming less true and slower, stimping around the 9 foot mark. At the beginning of August we will base feed the playing surfaces with an organic fertiliser feed, then lower the heights of cut on the greens and resume sand dustings to improve trueness and speed. Thank you for your patience over the last month.

As you would have probably seen walking to the 2^nd tee, we have an extremely problematic pipeline just beyond the tunnel. We have clamp fixed six bursts on this line in the last six months, and the last three bursts being in the last three weeks. We took the decision to replace a stretch of the pipeline, to remove the faulty pipeline. However now this is fixed, the problem has just moved further up the path, with another pipeline split a day later. This caused a problem for holes 1, 17, 18 and the putting green, as this pipe feeds the water to these holes. Getting water to these holes has been extremely difficult, we are currently using a makeshift water bowser to keep the surfaces as healthy as we can. Our problems didn’t end there, as you may have noticed a generator by the gazebo, we had a cable break at the top of the trundle which supplies electric to our irrigation PC. Therefore on the hottest day of the year, we were without a computer to run the system, therefore greenstaff completed a night shift, the same day, as well as their normal day shift  that day, ( working additionally 10pm to 6am) watering through the night to protect the surfaces from the extreme heat over the split days. This has now been fixed and we are back to computer watering on holes 2-16.

We now look forward to Club Championships week. We aim to present the course to the best it can be with the dry conditions we are currently having. It will be interesting to see the scores this year, as the average drive seems to be going 50 yards further than normal, allowing shorter irons into the green. We will be dusting the greens again and lowing the height of cut, as stated above to improve the surfaces from now and heading into the latter part of the season.

Looking at the ecology this month, you may have noticed a lot of leaves down on the floor for this time of year, with a lot of trees seeming browner than the normal bright leafy green, the lack of water is causing a lot of poor health to these trees. Whilst in conversation with the head forester, he said it’s been a tough year for trees, especially with Holm Oaks and English Oaks, which had very few acorns produced within the last year. He also mentioned that out of all the plant species, grass is the most resilient, so at least we have that on our side!

Look forward to seeing you on the course!

Rob Dyer, Head Greenkeeper, The Downs Course

The Park Course

The team have been busy through July with the consistent high temperatures. Hand watering has been a priority as well as around the clock monitoring of the irrigation system to help prevent dry patch. We have continued with our foliar feeds to help with grass health and to aid heat stress. The cutting height has been raised up to 4mm to protect the plant as much as possible. We are still rolling the greens to aid trueness and keep the speeds consistent.

In the coming days the tees will be given another feed with our organic fertiliser to aid recovery, thicken up the grass sward and enhance root depth and colour.

When the intense heat eases, we will lower the height of cut on the greens, put a light sand dressing and manage the nutrients to ensure optimum greens performance for Club Championships. 

Look forward to seeing you on the course!

Simon Berry, Head Greenkeeper, The Park Course