Course conditions – The course has been drying out; however recent weather has meant debris has again been deposited on most of the course. With more bad weather on the way please check your email regarding course closure.
Upcoming work – Subject to the weather, the greens will be sanded and fertiliser applied. Usual mowing will be carried out. The slash on the 18th will be removed hopefully in the next few weeks. This is subject to board budgetary approval.
Volunteers - Thanks go out to Alistair Bevin for mowing the practice range, 1st cut and aprons.
Greens - David Howard from the New Zealand Sports Turf Institute was at the course on Friday for a discussion regarding our greens. This is my assessment of the meeting.
Firmness of the greens and hole playability at St Clair is a dynamic situation. Firmness underpins the performance of any golf green.
St Clair has its own unique climate, is very exposed to the elements and has very little if any growth over the Winter months. We are for instance are at least six weeks behind in spring growth compared to Christchurch courses. The design of some of our greens is also a limiting factor on whether a ball will stop where you want it to stop.
The firmness of greens can be changed. It can be changed by the introduction of water by natural rainfall and/or irrigation. However, it would be unwise to artificially soften the greens to much with water. Club members may like it, but we don’t want to do this if we want surfaces to be resilient particularly for year-round playability. A green which is soft in the summer is going to be wet in the Winter..
Firmness can be changed by growing more grass on our greens which will mean there is a greater cushioning effect when a ball lands on a green. Growing grass on our greens has always been a problem. However, at this time of the year, we can grow more grass, and our Superintendent has been using a different rate of fertiliser on the 18th which appears to be working well. He intends to replicate on the rest of the greens. However, this is also a balancing act as more grass equates to more thatch build up requiring more sanding or renovation. Every action has a reaction.
David did not recommend coring the greens as we don’t have the depth of organic matter in the 0-12mm range that would warrant this being done. However, he did recommend continuing with our renovation program of regular sand topdressing, solid tine spiking, verticutting and the use if the Air 2g2 unit.
We also need to continue to fight dry patch on the greens. Ninety five percent of our greens are very moist, but small areas are hydrophobic (water repellent). This requires these areas to be treated with the regular addition of wetting agents and hand watering when time allows. Dry patch is very common on every golf course.
David will be carrying out his yearly Green Quality Audit in early November. I will report back to members when we receive his report.
Please remember to give way to our greens staff on the course.
Members can contact me with feedback on my dedicated club email address at convenor@stclairgolf.co.nz.
Play well,
Neil Turner
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