Golf
“
As a golfer, I favour playability as being just as important as presentation, so I always try to find an even workable balance between the two
in command, but am confident that, when I am off duty, my staff can be trusted to solve most problems without needing my help. Having a well presented golf course is
extremely important to my employers as they are promoting the course in order to sell houses. As a golfer, I favour playability as being just as important as presentation, so I always try to find an even workable balance between the two. We have a team of four landscapers who, although not under my control, are responsible for maintenance of all the clubhouse gardens as well as the new landscape planting project currently underway outside the course and throughout the resort. Apart from that, all the maintenance and construction work done inside the boundary of the course is my responsibility. Due to budgetary constraints, we do every project possible ourselves in- house. Generally, the soil profile here is very
difficult to work with. We are very high in alkaline, averaging about 8.1 on the pH scale. The heavy clay soils are made up of very fine particles which do not freely allow water movement down to the root base. In summer, with temperatures of up to 40O
C,
the clay bakes and can become very dry and brick-like in texture. A great deal of irrigation and aeration work is needed in order to help
the soils drain freely. The soils are high in calcium, potassium and magnesium, but low in iron and phosphorous. The Cation Exchange Capacity here is generally good, so nutrient retention levels are sufficient. We have a combination of seventeen clay push up greens, whilst our signature island green and practice greens are sand based to USGA specification using 100% Providence (SR 1119) Creeping Bentgrass. The tees have all been constructed with a
pure sand cap of 10cm. They were originally sown with a 40% Perennial Ryegrass, 20% Pro Pratensis, 40% Tall Fescue mix. I topdress using 100% pure Egyptian sand quarried from the Sahara desert. Compared with the UK, we have to do a
great deal more irrigating. In summer, we do not have any rain from June until late September. It is even quite usual here, in the winter months, to go for up to three weeks without any rainfall at any one time, so it can be necessary, even in January, to top up soil moisture levels with an irrigation cycle. We hand water greens and tees every day in the summer months and apply Headland Tricure wetting agent once a month from April to September in order to prevent Dry Patch. During the summer, the irrigation system is checked every three weeks to ensure that all the sprinklers are operating correctly. We have our own private reservoir
which has a capacity of 130,000m3 . This is
fed by an intricate storm drainage system which runs through the golf resort, channelling rainwater directly to the reservoir. We also supplement this by using three borehole wells drilled from an underground lake. We can produce up to 1,400m3
of water each day for use on the
course. We have a Toro irrigation system with up
to 700 sprinklers, all controlled by individual decoders. They are wired to two main decoder interface units (DIUs), and these are connected to the main irrigation computer which runs the Toro Sitepro 2.3 softwear. We have a climate here of many extremes, C
the temperatures can range from minus 2O degrees in winter up to 40OC in summer.
Generally, we will experience ground frost on some mornings during the winter months and will keep the course closed until the greens have thawed out. In summer, we are completely reliant on our pump station and irrigation system. Mediterranean storms can be quite ferocious, typically we may record 15mm of rainfall in an hour and winds can gust up to 40mph. Excessive hand syringing of greens and
tees is needed in the summer to cope with localised dry patch. A decently well mapped irrigation system is essential in order to maintain balanced water coverage
14 I PC APRIL/MAY 2014
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