A few words from our Course Superintendent - Chris Posa GENERAL: Its been another dry month with only 20mm of rain falling on site and 81mm for the year to date. We have had quite a productive month as the course is still dry. We have been able to allocate hours normally mowing to pick up and tidy up some little jobs around the course which is helping keep the place tidy in whats been a tough dry summer. GREENS: The greens have continued their steady progression of improvement and are now consistently in excellent condition both from a turf and playability point of view. I believe the greens are at their peaking point with the Clubs current resources, tee structure and volume of traffic. Any further improvement to the surfaces from Sept-May would see these areas needing to be addressed. TEES: Currently in good condition. I have applied a herbicide to clean out the Hydrocottle. The native (328) couch is a little sensitive to herbicides so you will notice a bit off colouring on the tees. FAIRWAYS: Fairways are looking nice. The next few months is a busy time for us spraying the fairways as we look to fertiliser, apply pre- emergent control for Poa and spray to keep the earthworms away. In spring I will be trialling the 14th fairway with a fungicide programme to help prevent the spring dead patch that appears late winter early spring. This will consist of two applications in Autumn with one application early spring. 3rd Fairway is well in play and looking great. BUNKERS: Bunkers are due another top up/move of sand so after we have applied all the sand out in renovation week we will be adding the surplus into the bunkers. We have made some progress with the 12th hole project. Thanks to Paul Gartner and his contacts we have got some fill on site with no charge to the club. With the fill on site, I have been able to get in contact with the contractor and we are currently finalizing a date to start. ROUGH: We are starting to see a bit of growth and colour back into the rough. Over all its looking tidy but I am due a final herbicide application on the Kikuyu. RENOVATION WEEK: Greens and surrounds to be scarified, harvested, sand, seed and fertilized. I will also look to core the weak surrounds to get more seed and sand into those areas. Tees will cored with select areas to be sand and seeded. All tees to be fertilIised. Fairways will be sliced for aeration. Insecticide will be sprayed. Rough to be sprayed if any spare time. Chris Posa Course Superintendent |