Course Managers Update - Around the Greens in July 2024

What a cold, wet and miserable start to Winter. 167mm of rainfall is the exact opposite of what we needed this month. Cool temperatures and a couple mild frosts certainly haven’t helped the situation either.

The greens are performing flawlessly given the environment. Greens are clean of any pest or disease and green speeds are around 9’5” which is a little slower than normal for this time of year but can be explained by constant rainfall slowing them down. An Air2G2 machine was brought in earlier in June to directly pump air into the soil profile and we’ve seen great results from this. I intend to make this a regular part of our management program during wetter times. Applications of Dolomite have been scheduled in for the winter months to replenish greens with magnesium and calcium which has been flushed out with all the rain.

As is the winter norm the tees are well and truly asleep with little growth occurring. The 3^rd tee is holding up with the extra attention it is receiving and with the movement of markers sharing the wear.

I remind all golfers

·         to play from the area indicated by the markers during practice rounds

·         to replace and fill your divots on tees and fairways and those left by careless players.

Fairway coverage and colour is fantastic given the amount of rainfall we have experienced. In saying that, they can only really be described as “wet”. We are planning on slicing fairways as soon as we can get tractors back on without damaging the surface. Weather permitting, we will continue to patch fairway bare areas in July and August.

The 9^th bunker is complete after several weather delays. The gravel layer was sprayed on the 26^th of June, sand has been added and the bunker will be in play shortly. As expected it has performed well so far in rain events.

Shay Tasker
Course Manager