Wednesday 3rd December 2014.

Work is progressing nicely with the reconstruction of the 9th green and its surrounding features.

The majority of the approach area has now been returfed with the harvested grass from the fairway, approach bunker shaped and final shaping and turfing of the green is now complete.

A new valve-in-head irrigation system has been installed to service the green and this will allow for individual control of each sprinkler.

A final irrigation station is be installed to allow irriagtion of green surrounds and final turfing of the surround and shaping of the greenside bunker shall be completed next week.

On another note I received a surprise visit from Ron Pease the first Greenkeeper of the club way back in the early 70's. Ron took a look over the course, we exchanged a few stories and was impressed about how far we had come.

Commencing the shaping.

Re-laying the fairway turf

Installation of the valve-in-head irrigation for the green.

Final shaping of the green.

Turfing of the green.

The finished putting surface.

Past Greenkeeper Ron Pease.

Friday 14th November 2014.

Work commenced this week on the reconstruction of the 9th green, its approach and surrounds.

Firstly turf on the fairway was removed and stored for use later in the project. The whole site was then rotary hoed to allow easier loader work and to break up the thatch/mat layer and make it easier to work and shape.

We are now at the earthmoving stage with the fill sand being bulked around the site to achieve the new contours.

By the end of next week the fairway approach should be complete, new irrigation for the fairway installed and ready to return the harvested turf that is stockpiled back to the fairway before it deteriorates too much.

 Putting surfaces are recovering nicely from coring and topdressing that was undertaken on in October. These greens received another light application of sand this week to help smooth surfaces and this will be undertaken again within the next fortnight.

Our mowing heights are back to normal maintenance levels and very shortly we will recommence with our Wintergrass control programme once bentgrass turf is healthy enough.

Staff harvesting turf off fairway.

Removal of old green surface.

Rotary hoeing of work area.

Earthmoving begins.

Friday 17th October 2014.

We have been very busy this week with the commencement of our renovation period.

All the tees have been hollow cored, meshed to knock soil off cores, broomed to clean up and mowed this week. We will also be looking to scarify and deck mow them in the coming weeks.

We have also commenced the coring of some fairways. We have completed the coring of the 1st, 5th, 7th, 11th, 15th and 17th fairways with a 25mm hollow tine to a depth of 6 inches. This depth of coring is necessary as we have a thatch/mat (organic) layer to this depth in some areas. It is therefore very important that we get down to the sand base to help with water and nutrient movement.

Once cored the cores are allowed to dry and then they are meshed to knock off sand before they are vacuumed and watered. This loose sand that can hold valuable nutrients, then makes a good topdressing material.

Some further fairway renovation will be undertaken in the latter part of next week but our priority early next week will be the coring and topdressing of our greens. This should be completed over Monday and Tuesday.

Hopefully the weather will assist us by being fine as this will give us a better finish to the renovation process. Once the topdressing sand is on the greens we shall brush and irrigate numerous times in the days following to work the sand into the core holes.

Everything going well our greens should return to normal in 4 - 5 weeks.

Cored and cleaned up fairway with topdressing sand.

Renovated fairway before watering and mowing.

Monday 6th October 2014.

RENOVATION PERIOD.

Course renovation practices will commence on Monday 13th October.

Coring of tees, fairways and green surrounds will take place first and every effort will be made to not inconvenience play of the course but it will be unavoidable to not create some degree of disturbance.

Please have patience and take care when playing around Groundstaff conducting this work.

Tee, fairway and green surround coring will be interrupted the week commencing Monday 20th October when greens coring and topdressing will take precedence.

Friday 12th September 2014.

Groundstaff have been working this week on repairs to the lower pond wall.

A couple of sections of the wall were collapsing into the lake and blocks required removal, clean up and replacement.

Friday 5th September 2014.

Staff have been concentrating on necessary bunker work over the past month. A priority list of bunkers requiring work has been established and we are focusing many of our hours to this work.

This has primarily involved the removal of excess sand off the bunker face and relocation back to the base of the bunker. Over time sand is hit from the base to the face and this softens the angle of the face and in turn encourages buried lies and golf balls to finish on the face.

We have also looked at adding more bunker sand to some bunkers to reduce the big step off and improve both pedestrian and machinery access. This seems to occur more often in newly constructed bunkers as over time the newly constructed bunker sand to compacts and when this eventuates bunker base levels drop.

Members can help their cause by correctly raking bunkers when leaving. If 2 hands are used to level and rake sand a better finish can be achieved. This is particularly important if you have to play a shot from the face. The rake should be turned over when leveling the face using the smooth side of the rake to leave a smooth finish. This will help to reduce the likelihood of a golfer behind getting a buried lie and having to climb the face to play their next shot and hopefully breaking the circle of buried lies.

It won't eliminate it but it may help!!

Excess sand is removed from face with skid steer and face steepened. Base leveled.

Once machinery has finished, final shaping and smoothing is completed by hand.

Golfers can do more to help each others experience!!!!

This photo was taken early in the morning of Thursday 4th Sept after a Wednesday afternoon competition. Obviously the golfer entered the bunker at the wrong point to reduce the amount of raking. They then finished it off by using the toothed side of the rake and replaced it incorrectly!!!

Friday 13th June 2014.

I have been requested to publish stimpmeter readings on the blog for those members interested and shall do so once/week generally on a Friday. They shall also be displayed on the Local Rules board outside the Men's changerooms.

Readings are conducted on the same area of a designated green to achieve consistency with these readings from one week to the next. Obviously the goal in preparing putting surfaces is to make them as consistent as possible but this his very hard to achieve due to many factors that influence speed such as age, thatch levels, design contours etc.

Green speed this Friday are at 11'8" which fits into the medium to fast range.

Very Fast      13' - ^
Fast               12' - 13'
Med / Fast     11' - 12'
Medium         10' - 11'
Slow              9' - 10'
Very Slow      8' - 9'