The vagaries of the local climate meant we had a slow and steady 5mm on Tuesday with South Essex 9 miles down the road having 22mm land on the course in as many minutes.  The course has perked up after this rain and greens have coloured up with the help of 8mm solid-tines on Monday, allowing improved water penetration.

Willows on the course are having a hair cut at the moment which always looks slightly daft but having them so close to play means we need to manage them to some degree.

A short back and sides please!

View of the 3rd green

A Common Orchid on the 2nd pond

Below picture shows a typical green on the Priors on Monday, these brown areas are completely hydrophobic and as dry as dust.  Rather than a lack of water it's actually to much thatch which is drying the soil unevenly and causing this problem.

Dry patch

 Short term and as you can see from pictures lower down we have aerated with small 8mm tines to improve penetration and watered with a wetting agent which will re-wet bone dry soil.

8mm solid tines on Priors greens

Next week the Abbotts will get these mini-tines across them and this will keep the surfaces from crusting over.   This weather puts an enormous strain on the Abbotts system, so we will be reducing water on tees over the weekend in order to concentrate on greens.

BBQ area tidied up

Through August we will be beginning our Autumn renovations (I know don't say it),  fairways are being hit first whilst still very dry and dusty.  We are bringing a scarifier in to pull out some of the weak lateral growth and clean up the fairways, together with adding grooves into the surface, this along with a herbicide treatment on some of the fairways to remove the horrible stalky rye grass i.e 8th, 9th, 10th Abbotts.  In the few weeks this takes to have an effect we will seed into the grooves we have created.  All of this will be timed, we hope to coincide with the end of summer rains so the seed can successfully germinate.  The pictures below give you an idea of the machine used and the immediate 'look' of the fairway.  This was done in October which is why we are moving scarifying forward to a dryer period, giving us a better finish

Scarifing 18th fairway

Lots of lateral growth

Clearing

  Hot, Hot, Hot on the golf course and for the first time in almost 3 years all the drain lines are showing up clearly.  The first and last 3 holes have extensive drainage with sand and gravel laid over pipe in order to move water of the surface of the fairway.  Unfortunately this means that even the slightest hot weather causes these lines to dry out,  although it is only the 16th that stands out.
   Great shot of the 7th fairway below.  Fairways on the Abbotts this week cut with tees mowers.  These slower, narrower mowers get in all the dips and leave a better, cleaner finish on the fairways.

7th Abbotts

  This week we have fixed leaks on the 9th and 4th greens of the Abbotts, so all greens are now working. The 11th Tee is still waiting on parts but otherwise the Abbotts is in good shape in terms of irrigation.
The Priors has problems on greens 5 and 14, both of which will be fixed in the next week.
  A course walk with the committee has seen a review of rough areas on the course, with modifications being made during this week.  Most areas are being tweaked with only a few larger areas to be cut.  Ideally we would like to collect all this 'thick grass' so that next year it will grow back finer and leave a better surface.

Dan,  hand watering greens

Irrigation

  With a very hot few days forecast the focus at the moment is on irrigation.  In the last few days we have been replacing sprinklers on greens.  This involves removing the old one, replacing, re leveling and setting up of the new version.  The new sprinkler potentially pumps out 100 litres of water a minute over a normal cycle of 10 minutes every evening when the weather reaches these temperatures.  The sprinklers are fitted with different nozzles depending on the size of the green or tee.  Most of our sprinklers are set in an imaginery square pattern with a sprinkler on each corner, they are sited about 17 metres apart to give a consistent spread pattern.
  The system can be watered by hand from the box on the course, manually from the computer, or from a program set up to come on when we want.

A new head on the greens

  The object of watering is to keep the plant alive and try and maintain a dry firm green.  We do not water to keep the turf green and soft.  We will aim to water heavily on one night followed by 1 or 2 nights missed followed by a heavy water.  This is supplemented by hand watering of localised dry spots.

Inside an irrigation box.