The Playing Surfaces 1 st st June 2018 The weather has started playing nice and the conditions have become more favourable for playing golf, with the sun shining, temperatures in the high teens and virtually no rain. This has given us the chance to have an uninterrupted run at improving the presentation of the course by frequent mowing schedules and carrying out the necessary maintenance on each of our playing surfaces to keep the areas on the course to a high standard. The high temperatures and very little rain has given us a few headaches regarding the meadow grass seed head flush on the greens and some exposed areas drying out on the course, but we will keep on top of these problems by targeted maintenance and greenkeeping methods which I will explain later on. This month s update will mainly focus on the playing surfaces out on our course and to highlight some of the work which has recently taken place on them, why we do it and hopefully it will give members a better understanding and insight of what we have been up to in the last month. The Greens The aim for us is to deliver consistent greens with respect to speed, smoothness and firmness all over the course. At the moment the greens are largely consistent, with some exceptions, but we aim to continue top dressing to smooth out any slight imperfections and raise green speed. The grass coverage is very good apart from a few scars and damaged areas from winter, which have been hand spiked and seeded to encourage recovery. The granular fertiliser and irrigation we have applied have kept them healthy and growing despite virtually no rainfall in the month of May. Green Speed Green speeds are usually at the top of the golf club agenda especially among the better golfers, with the common cry being we want them faster. Our desired speed is 9.5ft throughout the day (although we can crank the speed up a bit when required), which is plenty fast enough around here as our greens are quite undulating and exposed in parts and can become very challenging and not enjoyable for the average golfer when the greens become firm or the wind picks up. To achieve this target speed we need to combine regular top dressing, verti cutting, good
drainage along with mowing and rolling, as improving consistent pace throughout is not as simple as cutting the grass shorter and rolling more. During the last month the greens have been running on average slower (8.5ft 9ft) than what we want, but we will continue to carry out basic maintenance to improve this figure. We are currently mowing them every day at 2.9mm. Quick link below to show how Green Speed is calculated https://youtu.be/uf1oi5gfar8 Meadow Grass If you read last month s edition you might remember me waffling on about Growth Degree Days (GDD) and their relation to growth and development of turfgrass. A significant figure of 180 GDD s usually coincides with the start of the Meadow Grass (or Poa Annua if you have heard of it by its Latin name) seeding and flowering on the greens (this GDD figure occurred in our area on 9 th May and is definitely linked as our greens started to flower around that time). Our greens are predominately Meadow Grass (75%) and is the white coloured patches you see on the greens when it is flowering (May to June) with the 8 th green normally being the worst hit. Meadow Grass thrives on parkland golf courses like ours, and although it is manageable it does have its drawbacks when it comes to green speed. It has a folded boat shaped leaf which is coarser and presents more drag on a ball roll compared to finer grasses resulting in slower and less smooth surfaces. Its main negative aspect however, is its vast breeding potential. A single Meadow Grass plant produces around 6 seedlings per annum, which produces 36 seeds per seedling, which has a potential annual seed dump of 13,060,694,016 seeds per single plant (by the way I needed a lot of fingers and toes to work that one out), but don t be terrified with this number as not all the progeny
survive and the problem dies down around mid June. Up to that time we will carry out regular verti cutting to alleviate the problem and improve consistency in green speed and smoothness (verti cutting is used to help reduce the populations by dislodging and removing Meadow Grass seed heads and in turn limiting the spread). Tees The tees at Mortonhall receive more wear and tear than any other area on the course and it is a constant struggle to deliver smooth, healthy and good looking teeing grounds with so much traffic and shade to deal with, especially on the par 3 s. The main problem is off course the divots being made by golf shots, but we are using a new seed mix along with the soil and so far the results have been quite good. We are patching tees on a more regular basis (twice weekly) this season and also using a better tee marker rotation that will hopefully spread wear evenly over the entire teeing ground better. Along with this we would like to ask for your help also by using the divot boxes positioned on each of the par 3 s (we will keep them filled this year). We cut our tees 2 or 3 times a week to keep them tidy and have raised the height of cut to 10mm this year to protect the turf from stress. We have also applied fertiliser and sprayed wetting agent in the last month to help the recovery rate. Wetting Agents Along with the seed and soil to make the grass grow and tees recover, we need a bit of help from the weather by giving us some sunshine and rain. The rain bit has been a touch problematic this month as there hasn t been any, so we have continuously had the irrigation switched on. Sadly this has not been enough and the tees have become dry and too firm. To help us with this problem we have applied wetting agent to all the tees. For those who don t know what a wetting agent is, I will briefly describe how it works and how useful they are to us when it s dry. When we have dry patchs on the greens, tees, aprons etc. it basically becomes hydrophobic (water repellent) as it is so dry and firm, the water will just run off it and won t be able to break the surface. A wetting agent is a substance that lowers surface tension and increases the soils penetrating qualities and helps absorb the water and hold onto it (meaning every drop of water the soil gets after a wetting agent is applied it holds onto it and uses). We all have a form of wetting agent in our kitchen because fairy liquid is a bit like it as the liquid breaks down surface tension on your plates when you are washing the dishes. Fairy liquid can work in the garden too, I have tried it and it definitely helps with dry areas. Aprons We treat the aprons pretty much like the tees but with one difference, the height of cut. We mow the aprons 2 or 3 times per week at 8mm, which we feel is an ideal
height for the transition between apron and green. At this height you can putt without the drag of the ball being too much and you can pitch with confidence off it as there is a bit of grass underneath the ball. In the last month we have applied wetting agent and fertiliser and at the moment we are really pleased with the grass coverage on the aprons and after a few cuts they really stand out. The 7 th apron, a touch time consuming to mow but the end protect is quality Fairways The fairways are the main focal point of any hole as it is the first thing that catches your eye from the tee, so it is important that the fairways look good from afar along with being firm, smooth and consistent to play from. The height of cut on the fairways is 11mm which we feel is short enough so you can get some roll out from your tee shot but enough grass to get a good lie when playing a shot (we have just recently purchased brushes for the front of the fairway mower so it stands up the grass for a
better cut and also helps golfers with a better lie). The fairways are cut 2 or 3 times a week. Growth Regulator The main problem we have maintaining our fairways is the huge amount of time taken to cut them (to get them looking sharp we need to put in at least 20 hours per week on the fairway mower). In busy periods this amount of cutting proves a problem as we need the man hours to be put to other uses (patching, strimming, edging bunkers, raking etc.). So we have tried something new this year in the form of spraying growth regulator on them. We employed a contractor to come in and spray all our fairways with a product that acts as a growth regulator to try and ease the problem of excess growth on the fairways. The product is designed to inhibit vertical growth and divert grass growth downwards into the root system and improve development and health. This in turn produces a thicker, healthier sward (in layman terms it stops grass growing so quickly but makes grass growth thicker, resulting in less man hours cutting). This practice is very common on golf courses and much research was put in before undertaking this method by quizzing experts and asking previous users of its benefits. After a few days the growth regulator certainly started working, with vertical growth slowing down and the fairways needing less mowing. The downside however is the fairways have lost their colour (we are not certain if this colour loss is down to the product applied or the extended dry spell we are experiencing) but hopefully we will get some rain in the near future so we can judge the end product better. We have some liquid fertiliser put aside to spray on the fairways when we get some rain which will colour up the fairways if required. Volunteer Patchers Patching divots on a fairway is a long process for us to undertake, so the help we receive from the volunteers makes a huge difference. Over the coming months we will organise more divot days and it would be great to see any members who are available to come along and help out. It is greatly appreciated by all and it also acts as a great opportunity to meet the greenstaff, have a chat and ask any questions about the course. It also gives you a chance to have a look around our facilities.
Team Divot putting in the hours on the 16 th Fairway Rough and First Cut The largest area we need to cut on the course is our rough areas which we cut once a week and then go over the longer areas again if time allows us (8, 9, 11, 12 and 15 normally). We cut our first cut (the 2 widths of mower that is the transition between fairway and semi rough) twice weekly. The aim for us is to produce rough areas that are consistent throughout the course and since we have started using a rotary mower instead of cylinder gangs a few years ago we feel that we achieve this. The height of cut we use is 38mm (1 ½ inches) for the semi rough and 22mm for the first cut, which we feel is an ideal height for us to keep on top off and to be a challenge for the golfer without it being too brutal. We have 2 slight issues at the moment when maintaining the rough, the first is the amount of growth we are experiencing at the minute. The areas of rough that are especially thick need blown with the tractor mounted blower (again 8, 9, 11, 12 and 15). At the moment we are extremely busy with other aspects on the course so the excess grass might lie in the rough for a few days until we have the opportunity to blow it away however we will not leave any grass debris lying at the time of any important competitions. The other issue we have and it has just turned up in the last few weeks is the appearance of weeds in the rough (mainly daisies, dandelions and clover). We have the chemical in the shed waiting to ease this problem but unfortunately we can t apply it in drought conditions so we need to wait for some rainfall and will apply the herbicide when the weather allows us (funny how during the winter months we were pleading for the rain to stop and now we are asking for it to tip down). We are always moaning about something (lol)! Shaun Cunningham May 2018