GOLF
I write a newsletter every month telling them what we are up to for the next few weeks and it keeps them in the loop if they are planning on playing any matches or competitions
would like to complement the cutting with a greens iron which I am currently looking at purchasing.”
new irrigation system.”
“We had an appraisal from Irritech a month ago, and I have got Wesley Henshaw from Hunter Irrigation coming in to have a look in the next few weeks. Initial assessments have been that the sprinklers are under old clay, coverage is not even, a lot of them have failed, and all the manual points at the back of the greens have corroded. We also need to look at a water treatment facility as the water is coming straight out of the lake and, at present, does not have a treatment facility in place.”
Mat talks me through the general maintenance of the greens. “We have just dropped the height of cut to 4.5mm. We hollow cored about a month ago, so they have just recovered from that. In winter, depending on ground conditions, I try and keep it between 5 and 6mm, which gives us decent ball role as long as it is dry enough. I
“Aeration on the greens comprises hollow coring twice a year - with 6mm cores in the spring and up to 13mm cores in the autumn. This is followed by a topdressing of straight sand; over the last two years, we have applied around 300 tonnes. We will also use the Toro ProCore throughout the season with solid tines going as deep as possible.” “Last year, we overseeded with an all bent mix of Johnsons Pro-Nitro - using a GreenTek Dyna-Seeder - as we had a lot of burnt off areas on the greens from that five weeks of hot weather. They came back really quickly and now the greens are packed with bents, whereas before it was pretty much all poa, so we are going to try and overseed at the end of this season as well.” Now the greens are going in the right direction, Mat has started to look at improving the tees. “We’ve been hollow coring the tees the best we can, followed by an application of ICL’s Sportsmaster Cleanrun Pro to weed and feed. We are also going to run the Verti-drain and ProCore over the tees once we know they are clear of rocks underneath them.”
Mat likes to use a liquid-based fertiliser programme on his greens and has seen little disease so far. “At the moment, I am just going with a liquid approach. I’m using SeaAction seaweed, Biomass sugars,
HumiMaxx, Phosphites, PrimoMaxx and Chelated iron. I try to put on as little nitrogen as possible. The last hit they had was after we hollow cored in March at a rate of 35g/m2
.”
“We’ve not seen any real disease all winter, except for a little bit of fusarium on one of the greens a few weeks ago, but I think that was more to do with the stress of the hollow coring and it has grown through already. I do have a healthy stockpile of fungicides in the chemical store, and I have just ordered some BannerMaxx, Instrata and Dualitas from ALS this week, so they are on the shelf ready to go.”
Mat has inherited a lot of old machinery, which they are gradually starting to replace thanks to the support he gets from the owner. “A lot of the machinery is starting to get old and decrepit, and we prefer to buy new outright, rather than lease or buy on finance.”
“We have recently bought twelve new ClubCar petrol buggies. We did look at going electric, but the feed into the building is not big enough. A new Baroness LM315 ride on greensmower which is very good, a rough cutter and the Toro ProCore, so we have done alright in the last few years.” “The majority of our machines are purchased through Vincent Tractors as the owner and their area rep are both members here, and I used to play with the rep in the juniors. Next on our wish list is replacing the
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