Both courses are moving into the winter smoothly helped in no small part by dry weather.  Worm activity is at a minimum. Tees and greens are being regularly brushed to help clear casting and stand the plant up for mowing.  Leaves are now thankfully down with only a few small pockets to be blown.

Paths are being topped up on the Abbotts including so far the 13th/14th and the 5th Tee path.

13th

5th Tee

We have also started path extensions.  The 10th which is always wet off the tee has been piped and drained.  The path is being extended over the drain and wet spot in order to carry you over the worst of the winter weather.

New drain

Path cut out, fill starting

Projects currently running on the Priors include:

15th fairway bunkers filled in and seeded.  Now finished.

15th

3rd Greenside filled, seeded now Finished.

3rd Greenside

Ready for seed

3 bunkers to be filled by double green.  Bunkers filled ready for topsoil.

3 bunkers to be filled

Ready for topsoil

10th fairway bunker now filled with soil, drainage fixed ready for excavation work.

bunker marked out

Next  project work on the Priors includes:

New path to new 7th bridge.

New path around the 11th green.

New path from 12th green to new 13th tee.

This work is taking place on top of all the usual cultural practices an both courses so we are currently very busy whilst the weather is dry.

Things are moving at apace on the Priors.  Picture below shows seeder starting on the far portion around 6 and 12, followed by a pre-seed fertiliser.  This has now been finished and is awaiting some rain.  Whilst we have  plant on site we have begun filling in bunkers around the course.  2 on the 3rd and 15th as well as 3 on the 9th/17th.  This will allow us to focus more attention on the remaining bunkers and still keep the integrity of the course.

Seeding

15th Fairway bunkers

New 11th T position

After what should have been an excellent drop of rain over the weekend (only 3mm) and an incredibly dry 3 month period greens are still dry.

They have struggled in the last 2 weeks so a slight height increase and a little fertilizer mixed with iron, calcium and magnesium (ideal to strengthen the plant ready for winter) is helping greens fill back in.  Through the autumn we will be slitting and brushing greens on a regular basis. This will help in the first instance keep the surface open and therefore drier.  The brushing will stand up the sward and keep the surface clean of organic matter, protecting from disease during the winter period.

14th Green

The picture above is a core taken out of the 14th green today.  This area has no moisture at all. Completely hydrophobia, with good root penetration but grass on the surface has gone dormant and until we attack it with wetting agents and once the weather turns it will stay in this dormant state. About 4-5 greens have sections with dry dormant areas, with the rest of the green lovely and green.

2nd Green P

Priors course is looking good with the land fill areas receiving topsoil and the surfaces all clean and tidy.  Greens are getting a heavy dressing and deep tining this week.  1 ton of sand per green and tines penetrating 9" into the soil.  We will repeat on the Abbotts in a few week time.

Moving into Autumn soon the course is currently very dry awaiting some much needed precipitation.

Priors greens have been hollow-tined and are recovering nicely helped in no small part by the warm weather.  The height has been lowered on the Priors and these greens will be verti-cut next week.  Top soil is being added back to the mounding between 6 and 12 with the final shape now coming through. Soil importation is almost finished with the new 13th and 11th tees receiving a final grade in the next few weeks.

12th green Priors

Greens on the Abbotts have received an early attack of Fusarium but warm weather and strong growth will see this disappear in the coming weeks.  Fungicide will be sprayed early next week as a preventative for the usual autumn attacks.  We are trying not to water to much on greens as the summer comes to a close, hoping to go into the winter months with firm, dry greens.


Area of rough have now all been cut, once we receive some rainfall some of these areas will be sprayed with a product to kill the courser grasses in the sward.  This will leave thin, poor and unsightly roughs throughout the course over the winter.  With good spring growth these areas will fill in with finer grass species leaving rough in better condition than previous years.  As you can see below tree bases are surrounded by bramble so this will be another job for the winter months.

9th Abbotts

13th T Abbotts

Abbotts hollowtining is now finished and very successful it was.  Holes at 25mm centres down to 75mm followed immediately with a ton of sand and brushed in, cut and heavily watered.  The second day another ton of sand and followed behind with an application of granular fertiliser.

1st Green

Recovery in August with warm weather will be very quick, we have over watered over the last week to speed up recovery but will ease of through the week to bring the greens back to their former state.

Day 1

 Within 10 day I would expect 95% recovery and this early tining will see good greens right through into late Autumn.

Day 2

Day 7

Some great shots of the 6th and 12th on the Priors below

12th Green

6th Green

 A not so great shot of the vandalism on the 4th green Abbotts.  The wording says 'where's the hole ?',  for our normal moronic idiot it's spelt correctly and uses good grammar,  if any of these kids went to school i'm sure their English teacher would be proud. The holes further down the green were caused by the corner of a flat screen TV!!!.  I don't get it either.

!!!

The talk on the golf course at the moment is rough rough and more rough.  Whilst the rest of the course is looking good after prolonged rain the out of play areas continue to grow and finding a ball within the canopy is very difficult.  Three weeks ago all the managed rough was shaped and cut to boundaries set 4 years ago.  With continued rain 2 weeks ago some areas of the rough were again widened to allow easier ball retrieval.  

As the weather improves and the rough dries rough thickness should become less of an issue. However going forward this kind of rough should only ever be a half shot penalty and it's certainly not the intention to bring about the loss of golf balls just off cut rough areas, so we will be making some changes over the winter:

Firstly, and this has already started, crown lifting trees; raising the height of the canopy so our machines can actually cut below trees that are still in play allowing easier ball retrieval, this will also keep unsightly bramble and weeds away from the base.

Secondly, key areas are to be sprayed with a product that will kill much of the coarse grass within the canopy.  This will look and play badly in the winter season but by next summer these jungle areas should be much improved.  This product called 'Rescue' has been used with great success in improving fairways 7 through till 14 over the past 4 seasons.

Finally, Hollow tining takes place on the 8th and 9th of August.  Last year we scarified in August with great success leaving surfaces in great condition right through the winter.  This year the plan is to hollow tine down to 75mm with 12mm outer tines and somewhere approaching 30 tons of sand to fill in the holes.  We plan to begin on the 8th after 12(the course will be closed after 12 on the Monday) and continue through Tuesday weather permitting.