Mark earns respect...
head greenkeeper took retirement, and the search was on for his replacement. Out of eighty-two applicants, Mark Smith, formerly an assistant head greenkeeper at the Belfry, was appointed as Course Manager. It is his Belfy experience that, Mark believes, helped him to get the nod.
He has a young team of five
greenkeepers, along with a part-time gardener during the summer months, and has recently promoted Ben Timms as his deputy, who is an experienced member of the team, to help with the management of the course.
In the short time Mark has been at the club, he has already made significant improvements, as he tells our editor. “After the bad spell of weather, up until the end of January, I felt we had some serious catch up to do with the greens, as they were left very badly scarred from the disease during the last two months of 2010. After the Graden treatment in October they didn’t seem to recover too well and this is still visible to this day. The greens, in general, looked very tired and weak, with moss patches
appearing in early February, whilst the turf seemed very spongy and soft to walk on. This was particularly noticeable during spraying operations, as the tyre tracks left severe indentations. In my view, the greens could have been
prepared a little better going into the late autumn/winter period, and a preventative spray applied well in advance of the cold weather and snow. After taking a few profiles on certain
greens I found, in general, that the soil profile was quite good, but the top 20- 25mm contained a high percentage of thatch. This surprised me as the Graden work had been carried out quite late in the year and I had, therefore, expected to see a lower percentage. After looking closely at the profile, I could see that the moisture was trapped in the top 10mm of the turf, causing the softness and high risk of disease re-occurrence. The greens do seem to drain fairly well, but I have approached the start of this year by trying to attack this top 20- 25mm thatch layer and also increase surface firmness. I have put a preventative spraying
programme in place and the greens have
been treated once a month and, so far, we have had no signs of disease returning. We solid tined the greens in early
February, down to about 5” depth, and left the tine holes exposed for a week before rolling. We have had two demo trials of greens rollers (Smithco side roller and Greentek vibro units), and have noticed a significant improvement to the surface of the greens considering the poor coverage and scarring. The pace has also increased slightly, stimping at around 9.5, along with the mowing. The first topdressing of the year was Chelford 30 dried sand, applied at about half a tonne per green, to lightly dust the surface and fill in any scars or old Graden grooves that had not recovered which, again, improved the overall level of the surface and run on the ball. The sand did take a while to work into the the turf but, obviously, at the time of writing, we had not had sufficient growth to take in the sand quicker, but the greens do seem better for it. A liquid soluble iron was applied to toughen up the turf and control the rapid moss increase on certain greens. We double verticut the greens at
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