CAPEL GOLF COURSE MAINTENANCE

Had to do a quick re think with this post, I had planned to use a few photo's from my phone of all things Spring, hopefully not a sign of things to come but the phone is at the shop under warranty repair and so are the photo's............. Spring has sprung and I wish I could say the work has too, but in reality the staff have been hard at it all winter in one of the busiest yet, with the unprecedented storm damage back in June and being 1 staff down for the whole period, it is basically just a continuation from last summer. The next 6 to 8  weeks are set to be even crazier with renovations, ( greens tees and front 9 fairways), the chipping green construction, 16th mound construction just to name a few on top of normal course work which includes increased mowing frequencies now the grass is starting to grow, and the irrigation side of things. Actually in some sick and weird way I am looking forward to it!!! During this time, as many know I do the blog in my own time, ...

Finally the bobcat was here on Wednesday for a few hours to excavate the green and bunker, With some deft use of the tractor and bunker rake we managed to shape the green area and surrounds. The bunker will be shaped next week along with a final tidy of the area before we allow the area to settle and spray out remaining grasses. Once satisfied we will then begin the process of loading the root zone sand from our pit, another shape, some consolidation and the green will be ready for seed. The surrounds will be seeded with Rye grass initially and then stolonised with couch after our fairway renovations, reason being we were given a very tight budget to work with, our brief, to construct a decent size chipping green and bunker to similar quality as in play greens  for under $1000, many would have said (actually I can't write what they would have said), but we will get it done within the budget allocated. It isn't going to be without problems, the first being...

Each Winter the staff undertake a few major projects on the course, over the past few years that has included the installation of the front 9 auto retic, tree trimming works and last year the cleaning, re-piping of the back 9 manual system till the auto retic is fully installed. Sometimes the winter period is not conductive to the type of work such as turf establishment however with only 4 staff, manual water system and the extra mowing through the growing season time does not allow these extra works to be carried out, so tho not ideal for some projects, it is the only time we can commit to such works without affecting course quality. This winter period ( I should point out I am classing the winter period from when we turn off the irrigation pumps) some works planned are - Practice Chipping Green and Bunker To improve member practice facilities we will be constructing a 270m2 practice green, chipping area and practice bunker on the site of the existing practice bunker to the l...