Course Managers Update - Around the Greens in January 2025

Welcome to Summer 2024/25. The average Max temperature was 30.8^o and 17 days were over 30 ^o. The 53mm of rainfall has helped to keep things green and the dams were full for our first 31 days of summer.

The greens performed exceptionally well and handled the heat and wind of December. I am very happy with the condition and resilience they have shown throughout December and the speeds averaged 9’5” throughout the month.

Despite an irrigation system failure on Christmas Eve, which meant the greens went without water for nearly 48 hours in very warm weather, only a few greens struggled. At most we lost a couple of metres of turf, in total, over the hectare of greens. Plugs of Bent grass will be put into these few areas to help speed up recovery.

The greens will be Verti-Drained in early January to help the air movement within the soil profile. Regular dusting will be carried out to help minimise thatch build up and to aid infiltration. The health and well-being of the greens takes priority, and we may be required to run short irrigation cycles of an afternoon on hotter days.

The tees recovered well from their renovation and are coping well enough with the weather. Some tees have dried out due to varying environmental factors, but all maintain a full coverage.

Divot filling/repair and playing from the white plates during practice remains an issue, particularly on Par 3 tees.

Reminder:

·         fill divots with sand provided

·         play from the markers not the plates during practice rounds.

The fairways have been fantastic throughout December. Regular irrigation coupled with rain has kept them emerald, green. The high temperatures and strong winds have slowed them up a bit heading into January though, and the warm dry weather highlights our Ground Pearl population as infected turf struggles to survive the heat. Renovated areas are showing signs of improvement and some regular rainfall would be nice to help these patches along.

The bunkers behaved for December with the drier weather. As rotary hoe was used to turn bunker sand over, with the hope that it would aid drainage and improve playability. The results were good but unfortunately short lived and the bunkers flooded again with the very heavy rain in early January.

Shay Tasker
Course Manager