The course is responding well after the last week of rain.  Greens although slow are smoother than at any point in the season.  Tees and aprons are beginning to fill in after months of poor patchy areas. At this time of year our attention switches to creating the healthiest sward going into the winter, which in turn will see a better surface in early spring and this is how we can produce year on year improvements.

With this in mind Hollow-tining will take place in August in order to achieve maximum fast recovery so greens come into Autumn in a strong position.

August 7th Hollow-tining with 10mm inner tines to a depth of 60mm will begin on the Upper.

August 8th finish Upper and start Lower.

August 9th finish Lower.

Process will work as follows:  Pull cores to 25mm centres across all greens, followed by core removal by hand.  2 ton of sand per green, dragmatted in followed by a mower or blow to clean up surface.  Organic fertilizer with a very fast release to push greens on quickly and water will be turned on throughout the week to speed up recovery. 

A light dress followed by solid-tine down to 2".  That brings the grand total over 100 ton of sand applied in the last 3 months.  Hollow tining is planned for early August and it is hoped by the end of the season we may get to 200 ton across the whole site.

Our obvious weakness is wet, soft, diseased winter greens so the more sand we can incorporate into the surface the better winter quality will be.

Irrigation is now fixed and greens are responding well, getting back to better, smoother surfaces.

Dry areas

Adam, our apprentice is now filling in the holes in his machinery knowledge and not only topdressed this week but also had a first go at tining.  By the end of the year he will have passed NVQ level 2 and be on the way in his career.

Topdressing

Trying to improve the definition in places ready for the autumn rains, when the whole course will take a big step forward.

18th Lower

The course is now incredibly dry.  Greens have had no water since rainfall last Monday 26th June. Irrigation fault was eventually diagnosed to failing pump.  This has been ordered and we should see delivery and installation by Thursday 6th July.  In the meantime we are cutting less and suspending all work on greens to keep stress levels down whilst moving holes regularly to green areas to move wear.

Dry

Very Dry

Very very dry