CAPEL GOLF COURSE MAINTENANCE

BASIS - Year round our number 1 priority is turf health, our 2nd priority is course set up and condition to member expectations, both are very closely related, for we have next to no chance of reaching member expectations if turf health is poor. For the majority of the year we achieve both, during summer however there is always some difference between member expectations of green speed and our methods to maintain turf in healthy condition (for the reasons explained in PT1). In an effort to close the gap between the two we trialed different methods in excess of our present practices and budget. It must be noted these methods are in excess of our present budget as such results need to be assessed against financial sustainability as well.   PRESENT PRACTICES / BUDGET LIMITS The height of cut for most of the year is between 2.5mm and 2.8mm. Summer heights range between 3mm and 3.2mm. Except for major events where lowering occurs Frequency during the non summer peri...

I do not believe it is possible to discuss our summer green speed trial or compare our cooler month green speed to our summer green speed without first having a very basic understanding of the turf type in our golf greens. Members realise we cut a fraction higher as just one of many precautions in summer to protect the greens and if we don't the greens inevitably suffer, but why? Our greens are predominately Pencross Bent, what is classed as a cool season grass, this means its main period of growth or when growth is at its strongest is in spring and Autumn more specifically when temperatures are between 15 and 24 degrees Celsius , outside these ideal temperatures Root and shoot growth slows, the further we move away from these temperatures the slower the growth until such time root and shoot growth stops, root growth can reverse, generally around 32 degrees. All living things need food / energy to maintain health, grow and survive, our greens grass is no different...

During the week we said farewell to Jimmy who as everyone knows, or should do, has been the Assistant Superintendent for the past 4 years. Jimmy has decided to work with a mining company, and take the ridiculous money they offer, I wish him well and commend him for the desire to get his young family ahead. Jimmy and myself started within a few weeks of each other in the winter of 2008, with absolutely no turf records on hand, no greenkeeper on staff to inform of any issues, we both thought through our own observations and testing at the time we were sitting pretty for the coming summer. How wrong we were, our first summer together on course was challenging to say the least, and we soon realised that not only were we dealing with different seasonal issues as we would expect, we both agreed it was like dealing with two entirely different golf courses so far removed from each other it wasn't funny. We often remark to this day the huge disparity between the golf course in summ...

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...

Over the next few weeks it will be routine maintenance only, course setup, mowing, irrigation etc. With Anthony at TAFE for 2 weeks and Dean on 1 weeks leave it is back to basics and will be attending Course presentation rather than starting any projects or extra work. We will be finishing the granular fertilising of the back 9 Tee to Green areas starting Sunday and with the manual irrigation on this side more time consuming watering in. There are a number of projects planned for the winter period and since there wont be much news from the course besides the weekly "same old same old" I will highlight those works over the coming few weeks. News from the past week, the greens are now sufficiently recovered to start dealing with the repercussion of not being able to spray for the couch encroachment, Saltene and late season crab grass prior to Reno's, with the chemical finally delivered we are commencing control of these weeds for transition, as for the crab grass which i...

And on the 58th day it rained...well close enough, more like showers....after 57 days without precipitation we finally received some during the week, a total of 11mm fell, not allot but combined with the cooler weather we were able to switch off the irrigation pumps for a few days.  Green Renovation Recovery   Just over 3 weeks after green renovations and we are now at our normal mowing heights, we have upped the mowing to have them in pretty good shape for this weekend's Easter Medley, they will not be at the same pace as previous events, another week would have been perfect but we knew we only had 3 weeks to get them back and it was always going to be tight. They are rolling reasonably well and there shouldn't be any complaints. On the downside as expected the crab grass and couch has hung around and now visible this because we couldn't spray prior to renovations due to the national shortage of the chemical used, we received delivery yesterday and will be spraying next ...

 It is hard to believe we are only 18 days out from completing renovations, the greens have continued their phenomenal recovery and we are now just 1/2mm off our normal heights, to highlight the strong recovery, normally after a deep large aeration as we did this time, we expect a 30 day period before we are even close to where we are now. The only downside is having to wait for the chemical control of the crab grass, couch and saltene due to the shortage explained previously we couldn't spray when we normally do prior to Reno's, this means these weeds are hanging around longer than usual and when we do spray will certainly make the appearance unsightly. There is no doubt the hydraulic oil leak non detection has held us back a bit more and we could have been even further along if it hadn't happened, tho it does appear we have escaped the worst case scenario of 10cm wide strips of dead grass. Whether through decisive quick action or luck, most likely luck the af...