CAPEL GOLF COURSE MAINTENANCE

Good afternoon and welcome to the first course update for 2026. On behalf of the course staff, we hope everyone enjoyed their festive season and we wish all our members and guest a fantastic New Year with low scores, pots of gold but most importantly good health. We have been in a never-ending cycle of screaming Easterly winds and Afternoon SWesterly Blusters making a mess of the course, debris removal from playing areas prior to maintenance and play a constant rinse and repeat with no sooner clearing than being back to square one, a very frustrating period for staff, so my thanks to them for their patience and persistence. It’s a task that is required to be completed before mowing and maintenance in order to ensure no damage is caused to expensive cutting units from unseen honkey nuts, sticks and spikes, in case of the bunkers which need to be clear so the rake doesn’t gauge the sand, to clearing turf area before any product applications not to mention for aesthetics, but there is onl...

  Hello and Welcome to the early December Course Update Greens have made a full recovery from renovations and are now at 3mm summer heights with strong healthy growth. There remain some small areas to fill in where disease scaring and or herbicide application took out more than anticipated, these areas are growing in. Growth regulation hence ball roll improvement will commence within the next 2 weeks. We are taking a more aggressive approach to saltine contamination in selected greens, some chlorotic patches will appear where saltine is being treated. In hot weather, 30plus, some areas of the greens may appear unthrifty and dry as a result of herbicide applications, this will be ongoing through summer to disrupt the saltine growth pattern and encourage bent grass to gradually fill in the contaminated areas. No impact to ball roll is expected and will mainly be appearance of which we will attempt masking with pigments in due course if required.   Warm season grass are...

  Hello and welcome to the November Course update. Over the past 2 weeks since renovations, the course continues to recover very well, greens are just 0.5mm off our normal cutting heights with most areas knitted in nicely. Some patches remain where aggressive measure to remove poa occurred but will fill in as we increase mowing frequency with lower heights. Fairways are also recovering well, a granular fertiliser applied last week is now starting to kick in which will increase fairway recovery and should be in excellent condition in the next 2 weeks. Fairways received their first cut since renovations last Thursday and came up a treat ! Though tee renovations were planned to continue through November on a rolling basis between other course maintenance works, the renovation bug kicked in and we completed all Tee renovations early last week. We decided to work extra hours to get them done, rather than have it hanging over our heads for an extended time, basically means we ...

  OCTOBER 2025 Over the past 3 days the staff have been very busy with course renovations, despite unfavourable weather conditions with showers and heavy clouds ( we are getting use to reno= rai, equation), all objectives were completed. Greens were cored, cleared, soil amendments and fertiliser applied then sanded and rubbed in All green approaches were cored and sanded, including par 3 fairway areas, practice tee and lawn. All fairways were verti cut, scalped mowed at a lower height and cleared of debris. Various spray applications and fertiliser applied. We were a little more vigorous than past greens renovations using larger hallow tines with smaller spacing, we also heavily verti cut selected greens, with all greens being given a lighter verti cut, namely to dilute the iron contamination in the soil from irrigation water but also to reduce thatch. For this reason we expect the greens to come back a bit slower than you maybe use to still allowing for a 4...

 Welcome to course Update for February, and what a roller coaster the past 4 weeks have been !!! We were extremely happy with the course, particularly how the turf surfaces handled the extreme heat through most of the 4 week period and how it was responding to increased maintenance to prepare the course to peak in condition for the Summer Cup, in fact we couldn’t have been any happier with the way the course was tracking, I was about to prepare the blog update with how much better the turf surfaces and greens handled the summer period over that of when I first arrived here years ago !   Then on Friday 31 st January, we experienced a major main line pipe rupture, under the extended car park area. The location of the break and a butterfly isolation valve failing meant we could not isolate the pipe from the system meaning no water to the course.  Of course this coincided with a few 38 degree days !! As thrust block installation required at least 24 hrs   ( normal...

So begins another year, it seems to come around quicker as you get older ! On behalf of the course staff we truly hope the new brings you joy on the course, happiness with your scores and laughter in the club ! For those members who are unwell or caring for a loved one that is, our heartfelt wishes are with you, and with all family like clubs if anything we can do, don’t hesitate to ask.   As we finish up preparations for our first main event of the 2025, the Capel Junior Open it is pleasing to look around the course and see what we have achieved, we can only hope the wind stays down and doesn’t start howling this afternoon with screaming Easterlies as it has been the past 4 weeks. It is always challenging to set the course up for this event, the public holidays, and general Xmas / New Year “spirits” have us at skeleton staff for a good week or 2 and then have just one full week in which to prepare for the event. Constant strong Easterlies as always make matters all the m...