Tee to Green October/November

Downs Course

Greens

The greens are currently in a good condition after we had a tough summer with a large outbreak of anthracnose on the greens. Some scarring is still visible, however after the autumn renovations, which included scarifying, overseeding and aeration work, they have come back nicely and are into the winter months with acceptable health levels.

We will continue our feed and aeration program throughout the winter, with a deep verti-drain scheduled for early November to relieve compaction in the lower part of the soil profile. This is vital to keep the greens healthy and move water through the soil in the upcoming months. We will keep feeding the greens throughout the winter months to aid in plant health, this will be done using foliar, liquid soil and granular feeds. Also we have adopted a preventive fungicide programme this year to keep the greens to minimise disease attacks throughout the winter.

Playing surfaces (Tees, Aprons, Fairways)

We have tera raked and overseeded fairways to improve the playing surfaces and re-establish some of the dead/worn areas on the fairways. Tera raking is a thorough and effective way of pulling up thatch and scratching the surface allowing air into the top canopy of the grass. We have overseeded with fescue grass which has an increased drought tolerance and put roughly 600kg of seed out onto the fairways. We will liquid feed the fairways once the seed starts to germinate.

Tees and aprons have also been over seeded with hard wearing Rye grass. We will also continue putting air into the playing surfaces throughout the winter months, this will be a variety of slitting, solid tining or hollow coring.

The 18th fairway is causing problems again with worm casting and laying wet. We tried to hollow core the fairway to remove some thatch, unfortunately this was unsuccessful due to the soil profile underneath being so stoney our aerating machine kept braking due to hitting large stones and making it bounce around. Therefore we have slit the fairway three times so far and will apply a penetrant wetting agent to help move the water through the soil profile. Also when we start our bunker programme in November, we will use sand from the original bunkers to top dress the fairway to start building a better soil profile for the future.

Winter Programme

This year’s winter programme includes bunker renovations on holes 5,6,7,8,16 and 17, turfing worn areas, woodland work, pond maintenance, irrigation repairs, raising sprinkler heads, tree and hedge planting and flailing natural rough areas.

Park Course

Greens

Aeration work this time of year is key, especially with the damp mornings and of course disease is always threatening. Sorrel rolling the greens 2x weekly to improve aeration by putting 1” spikes into the surface to help with air flow in the top layer, pencil tinning greens twice a month with the aim to aerate a little deeper 4/5” to help dry out the greens and to help aid drainage.

We continue with our spraying programme that consisted of foliar feeding and soil feeding. The foliar will concentrate more on working on a thick healthy sward and to strengthening the plant from disease and other stress elements while keeping a consistent growth rate. The soil feed is more organic based with natural products such as seaweed to help with root strength and to build a more sustainable soil for which the bent grass will thrive. For our granular feeding program, we use a slow release fertiliser called sustane, this is an organic granular product that has a long-lasting soil and plant nutrition, strengthens the plant tolerance against disease and keeps the green in good colour.

Fairways

We have brushed and fertilised the fairways and also, they have been overseeded. To do this we will used a machine that slits the fairway surface creating a seedbed on the existing turf. The seedbed will be deep enough to protect the seed from blowing in the wind or being eaten by birds. The grass seed we are using is rye grass which develops a dense durable surface which is hardwearing. This will help to restore the worn turf to pristine condition.

Winter programme

As the growth is slowing down our attention moves to our winter programme which will consist of bunker renovations rough management, woodland maintenance and turfing all worn areas, while continuing to keep our high standards on all the playing surfaces.

Look forward to seeing you on the course!

Rob Dyer and Simon Berry, Golf At Goodwood Head Greenkeepers.