Report from our Head Greenkeeper November 2021
November 2021 Course Update
Dear Members,
First of all, I hope you are all well and I’d like to place on record and thank you all for making me feel so welcome in my first 9 months at Calderfields. It’s nice to hear positive feedback about the course and my staff, and we will continue to do our best to keep improving the course over the coming months and hope to keep the course open as much as we possibly can.
Leaves, leaves and more leaves have pretty much been the agenda since October and the team have been busy collecting and blowing leaves daily to help keep the main playing surfaces clear for golfers and to relieve the disease pressure they can produce if left for long periods. It’s been a tough battle against them this year as they’ve been falling as quickly as we can clear them and with how mild it’s been some are still clinging on, but with the temperatures due to drop and some frosts forecast next week the last of them should drop.
As I’m sure you are all aware on the weekend 6th /7th November we had 3 visitors overnight on Sur Ron bikes that caused damage to 7 greens these were the 2nd, 3rd, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th & 18th the team worked very hard to repair this damage and we were able to get 5 of the greens back in play but with severe damage caused to the 3rd & 14th these will remain out of play until we get some recovery. In our approach to repairing the damaged greens we ran the verti-cutters over the greens at minus 1mm, this was done to help try and stand up any grass that was squashed by the tyres on the bikes, this was followed up by a cut to tidy up the debris caused from the bikes. Following this we overseeded the affected areas and punched the seed into the surface to get seed to soil contact and dressed over with sand. With some of the larger damage, we had to raise the ruts caused by the tyres and we incorporated kiln-dried sand into the holes to try and keep the level of the putting surface before following the same procedure as above. With the 3rd & 14th we overseeded the whole green and topdressed and now just have to be patient and wait for recovery. Some pictures below of some of the damage caused.
Now the colder, wetter weather is on the way we have raised the height of cuts across the whole course in aim to keep as much grass cover as possible as the grass will naturally thin out itself over winter due to fewer daylight hours and colder temperatures which leads to the enzymes that carry out photosynthesis do not work efficiently which decreases the photosynthetic rate. This leads to a decrease in glucose production which slows the growth of the grass down. With growth now slowing down, over the next couple of months we will start to work on other jobs around the course as well as some winter projects.
It is now that time of year where I kindly ask you all to adhere to course traffic management. This is to help maintain grass coverage throughout the winter months resulting in better playing conditions for everyone.
Moving forward I will be doing monthly reports to keep you all updated on all things happening out on the course, which I hope you will find informative as well as educational.
Happy Golfing.
Kind Regards,
Matt