The Downs Course

June has been an extremely tough month with a lot of variants working against us. Unfortunately they have all seemed to come as once. Again the lack of rainfall and water resource has caused the course to dry significantly. We have prioritised greens watering over all other areas and we aim to recover the driest greens using a proven granular wetting agent, which will bring the greens back to normal health in five days. We will then aim to move this process onto the aprons and tees. We have resumed our light sand dusting programme on the greens, which is pleasing and we aim to put on between 5-7 tonnes bi-weekly over the 1.1 hectares of greens surfaces. This will really help with greens trueness and speeds. With minimal growth at present, we have altered our normal cutting regime to every other day, and the days we do not cut, we will iron the greens. This really helps keeping the surface true. With this we continue our 8mm needle tine aeration on a monthly basis. The good thing about using a needle tine is that after we complete the process you wouldn’t even know that we have done it, as disturbance is minimal.

We have turfed and seeded the 12th walk on and this has established well in the last month. The carry has also grown well and is now full of Downland wild flowers. We will bring the post and rope in soon, so please refrain from driving through the wild flower area and keep to the pathway until you can drive on the shorter cut rough.

The woodland east of the valley holes, which has been disrupted by the install of the new estate pipeline, is beginning to be re-graded and in the autumn will be replanted with trees and a wildflower ground cover mix to allow the woodland to become aesthetically pleasing again.

We have also been strimming back path edges around the course this month. This will be an ongoing process throughout the season.

We have made good progress on a few of the irrigation issues we have been having. This is a very time consuming process, as it normally takes up a single staff member’s time all week. However we will continue to fix and maintain the system in order to be efficient with the water resource we have.

On the ecology front, we have seen an increase in bats throughout the course, which is a good to see as a cultural control for problematic insects we have in the turf industry. We have also seen an increase in Hares in the long rough, which is also very pleasing to see. A tree survey has also been completed to identify all the trees of concern on the golf course, these include, dead, dying, damaged or dangerous trees. These will be dealt with in the upcoming months. This also includes removing a lot of Ash trees from the Ash dieback disease which has hit the estate hard. I would just like to remind you that any tree we remove, we aim to plant three in its place, however sometimes this can be is in a more desirable place, which does not affect playability or grass surfaces.

Look forward to seeing you on the course!

Rob Dyer, Head Greenkeeper, The Downs Course

The Park Course

We took advantage of the course being closed during the Festival of Speed to undertake some Greens Renovations, the team hollow cored the greens with a small 6mm diameter tine, verti cutting to the depth of 5mm, aerated with an 8mm pencil tine on greens and then top dressed with sand.

What is it?

Hollow coring is the removal of plugs/cores from the playing surface, this can be of various diameter and depths depending on how aggressive the task needs to be.

Does it need to be done?
With the volume of golf that play on our greens the ground becomes compacted meaning drainage is less efficient and the root system becomes a lot shallower due to being starved of enough oxygen. Creating the core holes allows air, moisture and nutrients to be absorbed more easily. This task also helps the reduction of thatch.

What is thatch?
Thatch-(organic layer) is a layer of grass roots, stems and debris that accumulate over a period of time. A thin layer is acceptable but too much thatch will hold water like a sponge.

Top dressing
Once the hollow cores have been cleared from the surface, sand will be brushed into the holes to replace the removed material and dilute thatch and restore levels and firmness which will improve drainage and the overall quality and health of the greens profile.

Festival of Speed

Due to the nature of such a big event it is inevitable that some damage will accure. Renovations and repairs started as soon as the breakdown was finished. We are confident recovery will be quick.

Look forward to seeing you on the course!

Simon Berry, Head Greenkeeper, The Park Course