GOLF
I managed to take the budget for fertilisers down by nearly 70%, compared with previous years’ spends. We’ve saved a considerable amount of money and the pH levels will be a lot better for it too
all greens, but only on five of the tees, and two on the approaches. Frazer has recently purchased a Davis Vantage Pro weather station which has a solar sensor to enable him to measure evapotranspiration. Amongst his wishes for the future of the course, Frazer seemed to be most urgently after an upgrade to the older parts of the irrigation system.
As well as the natural drainage properties and the helpful lake, there is a combination of old farming drainage and herringbones on each green. The bunkers are drained too. Not only this, but the course lies on a valley edge in a typical ‘weather split’ area, around which rain fronts tend to manoeuvre, meaning the course misses out on much of the Midlands’ rain and snow.
Frazer doesn’t, however, feel the course has suffered more than the average course during this summer’s droughts. The greens were vivid, especially compared with other courses’ fairways.
There used to be some issues with airflow around some of the greens, due to the mass of trees, but the team has done a
lot of tree work recently.
All that remains from this now is some weed overgrowth, which Frazer is currently trying to tackle through the use of flails and selective sprays: “It’s a slow process,” he said.
Normal maintenance begins at 6.00am with a team meeting. The deputies are assigned groups based upon what the course requires.
Then, Frazer either manages this directly - again, focusing so far on tree work - or manages the umbrella processes innate in projects of the size in which the club has recently been involved.
Greens are cut daily, aprons and tees every second day, and fairways at least twice per week: “It’s usually a grass factory, so that’s a big job for us.”
“We topdress through the season with kiln-dried sand and during maintenance periods with 70/30 mix topdressing, but we haven’t done that much this year because of the conditions, but we usually do it three
times per year.”
“That has worked because, in our previous report, it was revealed that our top layer was somewhere right up around 90% sand content. If I could have any more equipment, my first choice would probably be a quality topdresser.”
“The topdressing also seems to result in good grass cultivars and density, because there have been dry times in the past season when we’ve actually had to slow the greens down intentionally.”
“They are consistently above 9.5 on the stimpmeter, and were threatening to ramp up beyond 11, which would be too intense for the size of our greens.”
The club have recently had a Toro ProCore on demo and Frazer was more than impressed. The club also has a Wiedenmann Terra Spike and a John Deere AerCore. “During my first season here, the greens surprisingly held a bit of water, so the first thing I did was to hollow tine to four inches and topdress with the 70/30 mix.” “I did that in August last year, and a lot of scarification in March, and that has all worked to increase the drainage. They weren’t soft and we got rid of a lot of thatch.” “The greens also had a compaction pan below the top sandy layer. So, I used a Terra Spike about four times through the winter at nine inches to break that up. That did the job last year, so we’ll do the same this winter.” I asked him whether, overall, Frazer had enjoyed his first year as a head greenkeeper: “I have. It’s been interesting. I like a challenge and erm… well, it’s been a challenge,” he laughed.
Left: Wild and interesting grasslands bordering the roughs and fringes
28 PC October/November 2018
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