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Course Information - November
Tuesday, 15 November 2011 15:27

Yet another PGA tournament has passed. We got off to a relatively slow start to the event with the 1st day being a total wash out. We received 30mm of rain through out the day causing significant wet spots through out the golf course. It was a big team effort and a sincere thank you goes to my staff of greenkeepers that put in some long hours to get the course presentable for the big event, the quality of work and professionalism through the event was second to none. I would also like to thank the volunteers that helped with morning set up each morning, again they did a quality job and without them the tournament would not have been as successful as it was.

During the tournament we have put the greens under great stress, we cut the greens at 2.5mm and rolled every afternoon to get the greens rolling at tournament pace. This regime is highly unsustainable especially coming to the warm months of the year where heat stress can cause huge problems. With warm temperatures and high humidity greens become highly susceptible to various diseases. We can change our cultural practices to limited damage from  these diseases. Our first step was to increase the cutting height from 2.5 mm to 3mm straight after the tournament. This will most definitely limit stress on our greens. Unfortunately because of this greens will run at a slower pace throughout the warmer months as opposed to the cooler months where the greens are under much less stress. It is important to take a much conservative approach to greens maintenance throughout the warm months to ensure healthy coverage to our greens all year round.

 

Thank you for your time and happy golfing.

Course Superintendent –

Stephen Gaze

nov-newsletter
 
Course Information - October
Thursday, 27 October 2011 09:34

Hello Members and Guests

With the NSW PGA Championship only a few weeks away we are now are looking to dress the course up to its best. However we just received 100mm of rain in the space of a few hours causing extreme flooding to the golf course. As a result of the unwelcomed rain we were forced to close the course on the Saturday of the club championships. This has put a bit of a dint in the tournament preparation with the extra clean up work that has to be taken place, I would like to send a big thank you to the volunteers that gave up there time to assist in the clean up, I would also like to thank those who volunteered with greens renovations, with out your help we never would have completed renovations in the time frame allocated.

Prior to the PGA we will be fertilising, trimming, increasing the cutting frequency to all surfaces and tuning up fine detail of the course to get the course up to tournament standard.

Thank you for your time and happy golfing.

Course Superintendent-Stephen Gaze

1st-fairway
 
Course Condition - September
Thursday, 15 September 2011 21:20

 

We welcome the arrival of Spring, already the temperature is starting to warm up and with the rise in temperature means the more growth you will see out on course. With the growing season underway we have  limited the amount of major work done on the course. We have completed irrigation in all fairways  but 3, 4 and 11, these holes will now be completed next year. It has been a grueling winter for our staff with the installation especially with the wet weather the cool season had to bring. The wet weather also set us back a couple of weeks which is why we have a few fairways yet to complete.
With the installation of the irrigation of the 1st fairway we saw a perfect opportunity to do some much needed work to the 1st fairway, we slightly raised the notoriously bare area with sand and turfed it with Kikuyu. By using sand, water should percolate more freely through the profile and get away instead of sitting on a clay soil which then quickly turnged hard and boggy which made growing conditions undesirable ( pictured below ).
With the major work done for the year we now look to prepare for the PGA Championship and club championships. In preparation we have scheduled to complete greens renovation on the 19th of September. This will consist of hollow tinning and topdressing the greens along with some amendments. During this time we will concentrate in maintaining the fine detail of the course, this will include mowing more frequently, trimming, bunker work, fertilising and the eradication of weeds.
Thank you for your time and happy golfing.
Course Superintendent
Stephen Gaze

We welcome the arrival of Spring, already the temperature is starting to warm up and with the rise in temperature means the more growth you will see out on course. With the growing season underway we have  limited the amount of major work done on the course. We have completed irrigation in all fairways  but 3, 4 and 11, these holes will now be completed next year. It has been a grueling winter for our staff with the installation especially with the wet weather the cool season had to bring. The wet weather also set us back a couple of weeks which is why we have a few fairways yet to complete.

With the installation of the irrigation of the 1st fairway we saw a perfect opportunity to do some much needed work to the 1st fairway, we slightly raised the notoriously bare area with sand and turfed it with Kikuyu. By using sand, water should percolate more freely through the profile and get away instead of sitting on a clay soil which then quickly turnged hard and boggy which made growing conditions undesirable ( pictured below -coming shortly ).

With the major work done for the year we now look to prepare for the PGA Championship and club championships. In preparation we have scheduled to complete greens renovation on the 19th of September. This will consist of hollow tinning and topdressing the greens along with some amendments. During this time we will concentrate in maintaining the fine detail of the course, this will include mowing more frequently, trimming, bunker work, fertilising and the eradication of weeds. 

Thank you for your time and happy golfing.

Course Superintendent

Stephen Gaze

 
 
Course Information - August
Thursday, 01 September 2011 15:03

Hello Members and guests.

 It has been yet another wet month for us on the golf course. Due to  wet weather carts on course have  been extremely limited, its very important that we limit the damage caused by carts on the course by  keeping them off  low wet points on the course, following cart direction signs and keeping them off any freshly laid turf ( in particular the new irrigation lines on the fairways ). If everyone does the right thing in there carts in wet conditions then carts will become more readily available for use.

The installation of irrigation has been the main scope for us this month. Fairways 7, 9, 14, 15, 16 and the tee end of 18 have now been complete, recent wet weather has played a part as we have had to change the sequence of what fairways to complete. We will try and complete the 1st and 2nd fairways in the coming weeks. With relatively big events coming up we will aim to complete just these two fairways before renovations, after that the main focus for us is to get the course ready for the NSW PGA. Once again we thank you for your co operation whilst the project is in process.

 Thank you for your time and happy golfing.

 Course Superintendent.-Stephen Gaze

directional-signage
 
Course Information - Juy
Wednesday, 17 August 2011 16:39

Hello Members and Guests.

 July has been a very busy month for us with the installation of irrigation to the fairways. So far we have completed the 7th, 15th and 16th fairways. With recent rain we were unable to complete a fairway in the last  week of July due to the wet conditions. There were a few teething problems in the first week of installation which took four days to complete the 7th, with these problems rectified the installation has been a lot more efficient and we were able to complete a fairway in two and a half days. Next month we will aim to complete the 14th, 1st, 2nd and the tee end of 18.

With the recent wet weather major work on the course has been limited, this has given us the opportunity to complete some much needed work to our shed and bunkers. All bunkers have been edged; leveled and exposed matting has been eradicated. Last week we did a much needed overhaul to our maintenance facility. We rearranged the shed in compliant with current legislation laws and got rid of any unwanted waste (which was a fair bit). With the EPAR audit complete more focus and attention needs to be implemented to our maintenance facility to meet industry requirements.

Thanks for your time and happy golfing.

 

Golf Course Superintendent.

Stephen Gaze


 irrigation2
 
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