Dear Member,
Back to the old-fashioned written word for the recovery update on the courses so far, although Ron and I will be recording a podcast soon so look out for that.
Great progress is being made across all three course I’m delighted to say in our push to recover from severe drought damage. Garden of course is behind Church/Mill but that’s to be expected given the problematic soil conditions. We’ve had great feedback from the membership on the speed of recovery so thank you all very much for that as it really helps to motivate my team and I.
We finally received rain on the 16th of August after a long seven-week drought. Throw in the record-breaking temperatures during that period, request from the Environment Agency to reduce water consumption, and voila the perfect drought storm! We are reviewing all possible options we have for water resource going forward and trying to find solutions both short and long-term to reduce the risk of another summer with drought.
The return of rains enabled us to spring into action and so we did, but how?
The first step was to extend the one-day weekly course closures and hollow core the fairways. No, this was not to take advantage of the situation and improve thatch content but an essential operation to enable waters to move into the soil profile. Without this the hydrophobic (water repellent) thatch would stop the soil wetting, stop the seeded from penetrating, and therefore stop the seed germinating. We didn’t have time to wait so a hollow coring we went! We’ve been through this process before and know what to do and how to gain a fast recovery.
With the receipt of further rains, and the soil wetting and surface softening, we drilled the fairways and roughs on all courses through the month of September. How much seed was used and how big was the area? Well, a total of eleven tonnes of seed was sown over an area the size of fifty-one premiership football pitches in three weeks. We drill seeded the fairways first to get them going quickly together and then followed up with roughs that are now recently complete. All while maintaining the golf courses to their normal standard, in and out of play, seven days a week. This laid the foundations for a quick recovery, and we followed up with a fertiliser programme I designed to push the young grasses hard to establish.
The vast majority of what we need to reach a full recovery by the end of growing season is now “in the ground.” I tentatively predicted Church/Mill to gain near full recovery by mid-October and we won’t be far away from that goal despite a colder than average September. I predicted Garden would take longer because of the greater severity of damage and this is still the case. We may not see a full recovery on Garden this year unless there is a continuation of good autumn growth. Given that we’re ripping it up in five months’ time, it makes logical sense to me not to chase perfection at quite a high economic cost only for that investment to be wasted. We haven’t given up on our recovery battle and will keep chasing the end goal on Church/Mill with additional resources as conditions dictate.
Our summer project work – fairway extension areas on Church four, secondary drainage on selected fairways – gets the final mention here. A courageous decision to press on with these projects given the weather at the time, but all areas are nearly fully recovered. Our goal was to get the heavy machinery needed through under firm soil conditions to minimise any damage. Recovery all the quicker at this time too given strong summer growth. Mostly behind us now and despite the challenges, grown back in for us to reap the benefits of going into winter without any lasting damage. The final holes on Church due their replacement secondary drainage will receive it in the autumn of 2023 and not spring. The decision has been made to stage the work away from spring so that the course can emerge in the best possible position and minimise risk of works if we happen to have a cold spring again as we did this year.
John Lockyer
Head of Golf Course Maintenance