CAPEL GOLF COURSE MAINTENANCE

On behalf of all the greens staff, we would like to wish all our members, volunteers and management a very Happy Xmas and Safe New Year. May all your Handicaps come DOWN! See you all on the course in the New Year Greens staff

Ask most players on any golf course about Sand Bunker Maintenance and the answers will come thick and fast. Not enough maintenance carried out, The appearance needs looking after, Not enough Sand, Too much Sand, Bases aren't level, to much rubbish in them. And the list would go on, ask them what maintenance do they think gets carried out and the most likely answer is they rake them with a bunker rake and maybe do the edges every now and then but never enough. With this in mind here is an insight into one aspect of Bunker maintenance, the dreaded bunker edges as the staff refer to it with a groan. Every 4 weeks during the growing season and every 6 to 8 weeks at other times, all bunkers are edged, Trimmed, cleaned out and raked, a pretty simple sounding maintenance task unless you are aware of whats involved. It can take 4 staff up to 10 working hrs to complete, THAT'S 40 WORKING HOURS EVERY MONTH !  First up is to edge the bunker, getting a sharp clean cut edg

This week saw the last of the Bunker Lips being done before Xmas with the 12th having the rear lip completely refurbished and the base leveled. The end result is a much better bunker. All bunker edges will now be trimmed up and edged prior to Xmas. 12th Bunker before 12th Bunker before 12th Bunker after 12th Bunker after Other work started but not yet complete include improving the planted area near the practice Bunker, some serious trimming work which was badly overdue. We will be encouraging better grass growth in an area previously not irrigated and eventually refurbishing the Practice Bunker so the whole area will appeal more. View from Practice Bunker View from Practice green before View from Practice Bunker after View from Practice green after Wind blowing debris over the course is one of the most frustrating events to happen, with no equipment to clean up large areas of leaves blown over fairways besides our rough m

We are steadily making progress with renovating bunkers, so far minor adjustments have been made and the excess mounding caused by sand build up removed on the 2nd x 2, 5th, 8th, 11th and 14th sand bunkers. The picture below shows what we are trying to eliminate. Raised lip and worn edge Major bunker works are also complete on the 6th and 17th right side bunker, these works included reshaping the rear edge completely, levelling the base from a very steep rear to front slope and with the 17th increasing the width of what was a very small bunker, and impossible to rake with the bunker rake. 17th 6th  Both Bunkers have received positive comments and look, play and maintain allot better than before.  The 12th right side bunker is next on the list and will be the last before the Xmas / New Year period as we concentrate on other maintenance activities. Bunker works will then resume after New Year. In other news, the back 9 fairways were renovated last week, a decent result consid

Its been a while, sorry about that, with the break in and replacing the computer system along with what has been a busy few weeks made it difficult to update the Blog. The greens came back well from renovations and are now being cut at 3mm tho we did slow down the time frame due to the concerns from the renovations, (see earlier post). They are still a little off pace as we get some vigorous growth growing for recovery and for summer health, but will settle down from here on, quicken up as we start controlling the growth by spoon feeding rather than granular feeding of the greens.  There remains a few weak patches on the greens from the sand being left on at reno's for such a long period of time but are slowly knitting up and will be under close observation for disease or stress related problems. You may have noticed some bunker works being undertaken around the course, we are lowering the entry lips of the bunkers built up over the years from excess sand and also levelling bases

Click.............Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Sorry Just me, cracking open a bottle of Jack's, putting the feet up and appreciating the fact the greens reno is finally done and dusted, ( excuse the pun).  We managed to get the sand on the greens from the past few rubbed in by midday after they dried under heavy skies, and then finished sanding the others, and finally rubbing them all in for a reasonable finish. It hasn't been the smoothest of Renovations but not the worst, with at first the Hire Top dresser not spreading the sand evenly and breaking down, then of course the rain, heavy clouded non drying skies, wet sand and a delay of 36hrs with sand on 8 greens before we could start rubbing in. My thanks, to our staff for putting in extra effort, our contractors for being flexible enough to allow us the extra day, and to those players today who turned up thinking reno's was complete and didn't mind playing the 9 holes which were open at the time, your understanding was apprecia

Our fears were realised today when we had to stop Sanding the greens midway through. With forecast for rain and cloud hovering about it was decided to stop the Sanding as a precaution. We started early, with scattered cloud about but with forecast showing showers not till the afternoon, we were confident of getting the sand dried and rubbed in before the rain came. However with 97% humidity, cloud increasing and no wind at all, the sand was staying wet. Unfortunately, the sand already out has not dried 6hrs after putting out and we are stuck at the moment with sand over the greens as was to wet to rub in. Another effort will be made later this afternoon to get the sand in before rain makes the task impossible. We wait with baited breath, fingers crossed, and hope I won't have to explain the adverse effects if we leave the sand on to long..... Coring is complete, Sanding will take place at the earliest opportunity hopefully Tomorrow. Footnote  - Just back from th

Yes its that time of year again, which all golfers just love...to hate.  For the many reasons we do this, click on this link Renovation Reasons .   Over the past week the renovation program kicked off with all Tees cored with our Ryan corer,amendments added, the ladies tees sanded and the greens verti cut yesterday. The Ryan in action Verti Units having the depths adjusted and prepared After the previous two glorious days we are keeping a nervous eye on the forecast for Sundays main green renovation day when we want, but don't necessarily get fine clear skies, a hint of rain could throw a huge spanner in the works so fingers crossed. Over the weekend, weather permitting, we will be Solid Coring, adding soil amendments, sanding, and of course rubbing the sand in. We are allowing a 4 week recovery period, (for the greens that is, not us) before they are back to normal playing conditions. Next week we will finish sanding the tees, from there th

It has been a pretty quiet 4 weeks as far as major works on the course are concerned. This is not to say the staff haven't been busy with the unseen work that is attended to. Broad leaf weed control from tree line to tree line including tees and surrounds has been undertaken as with some Poa control in surrounds and some of the shady tees where Poa annua ( winter grass) thrives. Staff have also been busy preparing for the irrigation season, with all sprinkler heads trimmed up and sprayed with growth regulators, with some 220 sprinkler heads and 280 turf valves on the back 9 it does take a bit of time to get around.  The front 9 auto retic was tested to make sure all is going well and sprinkler heads checked for proper operation, the back 9 greens and tees were tested after all our hard work through winter with the pipes and WOW what a difference, all 46 green turf valves working exceptionally well, the look on the staff's faces of the excitement of a kid in a jelly bean sho

Waiting around supervising my sons 18th putting up with the bang bang they call music and thought bugger it I will update the blog while I have the chance haha. Before I do, these kids just don't know how to pace themselves, I use to look like this after an alnighter, but this kid took just 45mins !!!!! gotta laugh.    Anyway back on the job and the 11th retic pipe work were completed this past week along with the 12th tee. Instead of explaining I will let the pictures tell the story..... Main pipe underneath green pipe - not connected A t join in an unusual set up Re routing main pipe and attaching to green lines Cleaning pipes Iron discoloured water from cleaning After testing works were deemed succesful, we are very close to finishing the back 9 pipe improvements and look forward to the coming irrigation season with improve water flow to some critical areas.

Staff arrived to something we don't see too often first thing in the morning, during the week. Idiots broke into the cart shed and decided to use them as dodge cars, and also use the 18th green as their track                                                                                                              It was only superficial damage to the green but we still had some repair work to do . We were also tow truck drivers for the morning collecting the carts Something different turned into something old when two nights later they decided to come back and finish off the rest of the carts they didn't totally destroy the previous time. Again only superficial damage to the green, which cant be said about carts which are practically write offs. Needless to say increased security measures will make it hard for them to repeat another performance.

Was a pretty wild end to the week over the past few days with over 60mm of rain and wind gusts up 90km/hr recorded on course.  4 trees needed removing after the wind brought them down and plenty of bunker wash outs to repair as well. one of the trees Wanted to put a pic of the bunker wash outs but was to busy to take one ! It made life a little difficult cleaning up and repairing washouts with also trying to complete the 10th green pipe works whilst Anthony is at TAFE and another staff off sick leaving only 2 of us for the majority of the week. By Friday afternoon all work was completed, tho with the winds persisting small debris across the course will not make it the tidiest it has been over the weekend. Now for the 10th green pipes. Following in the tradition of locating pipes, scratching the head and asking why would ya ? aka the 12th green 16th tee masterpieces the 10th green didn't let us down. We found the right side 50mm fwy main was capped and n

With the 12th green completed and a spare day I thought we would get another problem area (the mens 16th tee) out of the way. Expecting it to be a pretty simple job of digging a few inspection points, cutting some pipe and cleaning them to be all that was required........................................ THEN WE SAW THIS MASTERPIECE........  The 25mm pipe from this connection near the ladies 16th tee extended all the way to the Mens 16th tee, needless to say it was blocked with very hard Iron build up that could not be cleaned out.  Then we discovered the crowning glory of the pipe work, after the 30m of this 25mm pipe it was connected to 40mm pipe on the tee and then back to 25mm pipe heading towards the 15th green, again the 25mm pipe blocked. There went the simple 1 day job and we started trenching to replace the 25mm pipe with 40mm. Rain interrupted work and as such we will be endeavoring to finish this work before the comp tomorrow. Whilst uncovering this masterpie