Work Golf and Thank You


This week held two important events for the staff, the Volunteers appreciation night (last night), to formally thank all the volunteers who helped the club, these members (Ladies and Gents), are the true force behind the club that deserve our appreciation, offering their time and energy to the club for nothing but the affection and pride they hold the club in.

Finally Thursday was the Greenstaff Sponsor Day, a fantastic idea and one I and the staff support fully, (maybe for different reasons as they also get to play golf on the day….but), a field of 60 enjoyed the best weather of the past two weeks with sunny skies, (no we unfortunately do not have a direct line upstairs) and we hope all enjoyed the day and picked up a few course care tips along the way through our creative signage.
It is a chance for the staff to give something back to the club that employs us, a great club with fantastic people from directors, management and members (ladies and Gents) who offer friendly support and encouragement and while not unique to Capel GC it is certainly one of the many great things about the club that makes it such a pleasure to be involved with. The other opportunity that arises is to use the sponsor day as an education day, not to learn new things, rather to reinforce an old message, the critically important role that everyone can play each time they play their round, in course conditions, the little things like repairing pitch marks, divots and other course care messages. We hope to make the day bigger and better each year.


On course news now and tho the weather was pleasant for us on Thursday, it hasn’t been suitable for the spraying of weeds that we had pencilled in for completion, we need optimum conditions with a guarantee of dry weather for at least 4 hours after application on days when we can spray due to no competitions, unfortunately we have been waiting for 2 weeks now for those conditions to prevail, and we a chomping at the bit to get it done, each week that passes, the weeds are more evident so hopefully conditions improve soon.
General maintenance, planning for the upcoming major events this month, renovations next month and shaping up the practice bunker were all completed during the week. We are attempting to secure a small tipper to cart sand from the pit to the green and as soon as we do we will start filling the root zone mix.   
Once again thank you.

Popular posts from this blog

November 2023

Image
Welcome to another instalment of the Course Maintenance Blog, I will try and slow down the typing, because we have been going at a cracking pace on the course over the past 6 weeks that would leave the Cup hopefuls in our wake.   The Finish line is in sight for a number of projects undertaken over the last month and looking forward to holding back the reigns( ok no more cup puns) to give time to consolidate the previous work performed.  My thanks to Ben for his tireless efforts, with a great many extra hours worked, my staff who have also worked extra hours and of course both of our major works could not have been completed without the wonderful help of our ever present volunteers. This should never go unnoticed, coming from a metro golf course background, where volunteers were scarce to say the least; I am forever appreciative for the help these members give. Forget the profit and loss sheet for a moment or the condition of the course/ facilities, the true strength of a NFP club l
Read more

Saltene and Couch Grass

Image
I thought I would talk about this subject instead of what has been run of the mill course work updates lately, nothing like a bit of variety to keep it fresh... It is this time of year (summer if you didn't know better) the couch and saltene in the greens become more visible and start to out compete the bent grass. If you have been good students and followed the turf 101's on this blog you would know Bent is a cool season grass preferring cooler temps, Couch and Saltene both warm season grasses preferring hotter temps for optimum growth. So what happens when the two compete against each other year round ?   During the cooler months,  April through October the Bent grass out competes the Couch and Saltene, the Couch and Saltene are still there just not as pronounced as during the warmer months, thanks to their vigorous rhizomes even tho the bent has control of the top, the couch and saltene are waiting to pounce when warmer temps arrive due to their extensive rhizome syste
Read more

Hydraulic Oil Leak

Image
Over the weekend we had a Hydraulic Oil leak under the mower when mowing greens, unfortunately as it was pre-dawn mowing with a heavy dew, the operator only detected it when the sun came up after he was halfway through.   Of 13 greens mowed, 8 are effected of which 4 are cause for the most concern. Wishful thinking, I am wondering, and will find out soon enough, with the greens renovations only just completed whether the vigorous growth we have encourage to recover from Reno's and the higher cut we were mowing at will lessen the impact and we may be able to cut out most of it....Experience tells me IT IS wishful thinking. With this type of oil leak, it isn't so much the oil but the temperature of the oil that causes most of the damage, instantly killing the grass it contacts. We have applied Activated Charcoal, and a dilute detergent to deactivate and dilute the oil, there isn't much more we can do I am afraid.  We have sanded the 15th to see if that helps, unfo
Read more