First frosts

Today was the first day we've had frost since the end of last winter. In fact it was so cold this morning that the bunker sand in most bunkers had a frozen crust.

Bunker repair

Some bunker edges have been damaged throughout summer and we have started repairing these using upsidedown turf.

Greens and Aprons

Puffball

Saw these alongside a seldom used tee box.

Mushrooms seen in the rough areas

Mowing pattern

Wet conditions means that today we changed the mowing pattern on the fairways. By adopting this pattern, the mower need not turn around after cutting each line. Instead it needs only to drive in a clockwise direction thus limiting turf damage caused by wheels turning on a muddy surface.

Spiking the greens

This week we spiked the greens with 1/2 inch tines to a depth of approximately 3 inches using a  Procore 880. No top dessing was added afterwards, but the greens were rolled with the turf-iron.

With constantly wet weather at the moment and warm temperatures (10-15 degrees Celsius), we have been experiencing a high incidence of Microdochium nivale (fusarium patch) putting the turf under extra strain. Hopefully this cultural practice will encourage stronger growth and also disease resistance.

Busy course setup this morning

Stump-grinding

This afternoon I went around some of the tree line's with the stump-grinder to get rid of some protruding tree stumps.

Autumn drainage project

This drainage  project was carried out on one of the very wet aprons of the course. The hole wad closed to golfers gor tge duration of the project.

Method:
A survey was done (by the head greenkeeper and myself) of the area with a dumpy level. This revealed a fall of >1m from the lowest point on the apron to the point where the water would be draining (<50m away).

We then used rope placed on the apron to help visualise where the pipes should be installed. This was a very worthwhile exercise as after placing out a perfect herring-bone design the head greenkeeper csme up with a design that was going to be less disruptive to the apron but achieve the same drainage coverage (see diagram).

We used 80mm perforated pipe spaced at 3m centres. Trenches were dug to a depth of 450mm in order to miss any irrigation pipes or wiring, but to also avoid the chance of damage by future tining or verti-draining.

A team of 4 carried out the trenching, piping, and backfilling with gravel. Thereafter a team of 5 added an intermediate layer of finer gravel, then a rootzone soil mixture and then reinstated the turf.

The  work was completed over two days with dome tidying up needed on the third day.

All-in-all a successful installation with a small section still left to do.