The Verti Draining of all Tee's & Approaches, and the completion of all the fairways. This has been done using 25mm x 300mm Solid Tines. This should assist in de-compacting area's from the winters play but will also enable the topdressing that followed to get through the profile assisting by creating vertical drainage lines.
Scarifying on the fairways was also carried out once the snow had left the course, we used a 2metre wide machine that also collected the debris to leave as good a finish as possible.
While the Fairways were being Scarified we also scarified the Greens, Tees and Approaches using a Triple Machine, scarifying in two directions. This will help to reduce any thatch build up but also help to create an improved seed bed and stronger turf.
Once the scarifying was completed we began Over seeding all area's. This year has seen us put down seed to just about all area's of the course. Different cultivars of seed from different manufacturers to best serve the areas its been planted. Over 140 20kg bags have been put out over the golf course to improve turf quality.
The Fairways were overseeded (Picture above) using a Mix of Fescue and Rye, this year we have used a greater percentage of finer grasses on the fairways as a contrast to the use of a more wear tolerant mix last season.
Pictured above is the machine we used to overseed our Green's, Tees and Approaches, we double passed all these area's to achieve a more uniform coverage. It will be the first year we are concentrating on an overseeding program on the greens. This is because we now have a soil profile that should give us success with the cultivars of bent grass we are using.
For the Tees we used new cultivars of Rye Grass that have a creeping form of Rye in the mix which will help aid Establishment and recovery from devoting.
The Approaches were overseeded using a Bent Fescue Mix and the Semi Rough has been overseeded with specific cultivars to aid wear tolerance and improve winter colour.
Once the Overseeding was completed we topdressed all the Green's Tees and Approaches with Straight sand and topdressed the fairways with a Humas Material the same as last year which will assist with growth and seed establishment.
Once the topdressing was dragged in using the drag mat and new Brush all the areas have been fertilised, The Greens, Tees and Approaches have been fertilised with a quick release product which Is proved to release nutrient at low temperatures. The fairways have been fertilised with a slow release product that should last around 3 months. We have had the rain to assist and now all we are waiting for is it to warm up as soil temps are still low for the time of year.
This has been a mammoth task over the past couple of weeks with unfavourable weather conditions and I know it has caused disruption to your golf however the efforts will be well worth it and should become visible over the next week to ten days.
Thank you
