Bears Greenkeeping Blog March 2013

Hello all.

Welcome to our new blog from the greenkeeping department. I will be updating this page regularly to keep you fully informed of all matters relating to the golf course and our maintenance operations.

I must start by thanking our members for your support and compliments throughout what has been the wettest year on record.The weather has had a detrimental impact on our maintenance regimes this year, but we are now in a very good position coming into the new season. During the winter we have been uncovering  and repairing several drains around the course to allow some relief for the usual wet areas, some of these will be GUR for a short time.

This winter also saw us planting trees around the course. We planted 110 Austrian pine pinus nigra nigra trees in strategic locations on several holes. We invested heavily in higher quality tree guards that seem to be withstanding the extreme weather, to this date all trees are still alive. We are looking at other areas around the course to establish tree copses next winter, if you have any ideas or suggestions on possible areas to plant trees then please feel free to speak to me.

I am hoping to seed and topdress the trenches from the wind turbine cables in the early part of spring when the soil temperatures are adequate for seed germination. The area around the turbine shed on the 16th will also be renovated in the spring and I'm hoping to get all GUR areas back in play early summer. As some of you may have noticed we had to re-build the 18th pond to allow the cable trench to run straight. We have purchased a new liner to install when the water level recedes.

We have begun the reconstruction of the car park. Over the next couple of weeks there will be new gas tanks and pipelines installed with new fencing enclosing them away from view. Once the tanks have been installed we will then be resurfacing the whole car park with tarmac and painting car parking bays. There may be some minor disruption to parking during these works but the end result will be well worth it.

This year we are using 18mm solid tines to renovate the greens instead of using hollow core tines. This means there should be less disruption to play whilst allowing a higher quantity of dressing to be applied directly into the soil profile. Throughout the year you may also notice an increase in the amount of dressing being applied to the greens, this will allow us to provide a far better putting surface and improve the greens surface drainage. I am currently looking to renovate the greens mid April but we may bring this forward if the weather is kind to us. I will post updates to this blog when any major works are planned.

Please feel free to stop and speak to me if you have any questions about the work we are doing to the course.

The Bear
Head Greenkeeper