Not a great week weather wise with cooler temperatures and rain around but hopefully some warmer weather on the way.

Abbotts recovery after the hollow tining has been very good considering the lack of temperature.  The picture below is of the 18th green and shows a disease called Anthracnose.  This is a late summer stress disease, in this case caused by continued pressure on some of the dry patches on greens.  If you take a close look you will see yellow leaves and general thinning out in irregular patches.  I'm not to concerned over these areas as the late time of year will see greens filling in quickly in the next few weeks, helped by a heavy liquid feed and some seeding and dressing into these patches.

Anthracnose active in the foreground

Whilst soil temperature is still high poor fairways are being seeded.  Scarifying is taking place first on all fairways, followed later in the week by the seeder on weak areas and some complete fairways.

Scarifying the 7th fairway

                                                                           

Early start for the hollow tining, which went well although the weather was unhelpful.  Lots of brushing tomorrow.

  Trialing the hollow-tining on the par 3 today as the weekends Club Championship prevents us setting up the machine on the main greens.  We are beginning on the front nine Monday morning at 5 am (yes that's 5 am),  Hollow tined to a depth of 3 inches, cores pushed into rows as you can see from the picture below. Collected behind with snow shovels and debris blown off.  Followed up with heavy dressing of around  a ton and a half.  Brushed, dragmat, rolled and watered.   

  In spite of the weather course set up finished for the Club Championship, having it so late in the year means good greens, but fairways and lots of turf areas looking tired.  Perhaps the end of July next year would be a better date? 

Tining.

  Hollow-tining on the Priors was a non starter, the course was far to dry and the machine just ripped the surface to pieces, so as you've no doubt seen, we heavily dressed, then tined, then tidied up the surface.  Nearly 2 week on and the Priors have recovered very well although there will be more than normal disturbance over the winter on these greens as we attack the thatch build up and firm them up ready for the new season.

A ton and a half per green

Before and after brushing

Next week we are hollow-tining the Abbotts.  Front 9 on the Monday and Back 9 on the Tuesday.  The greens will be on temporaries at some point during the day to allow us to do the work.  This work will cause lots of disturbance to the surface on the day but if the weather stays warm greens should soon return to normal.

                 

Dates for Hollow-tining now confirmed.

Priors are being started on Tuesday August the 20th after 11 o'clock and continuing through Wednesday.

Abbotts are being started on Monday the 9th of September and continuing through Tuesday.

Neither course will be closed during this process but the Abbotts will have temporary's on a rolling basis through the day.  The Priors will receive a more aggressive aeration program to help combat the increased thatch problem.

A few pictures of hedge trimming on the 13th today.

After the flail work

Using an extendable hedge trimmer

Luckily we don't have the picture at the end of this sequence with the course manager falling through the hedge and being caught upside down by one of the guys.  Starting to show my age I think.

Well, whilst the course meanders its way through the Summer our focus is now on Autumn renovation and further course improvements.

Next week we will begin scarifying fairways on the Abbotts, it will take about 3 days and will pull up substantial thatch and organic rubbish.  This will be followed by the blower and a further cut to clean them up after.  We will then spray selected fairways with Rescue, a product to remove unwanted coarse grasses, Rye and Yorkshire Fog principally.  Finally poor fairways will be overseeded  in early September.

The Priors greens are due to be Hollow-tined in the next 2 weeks.  Always a difficult process to try and balance against customer needs and course needs but this work is always undertaken to make long term progress on the course.  We will be tining up to 3 inches deep at  inch and a half centres.  The cores will be piled into a line behind the machine and removed by hand to ensure no heavy machinery is riding across the green and closing up the holes before the topdressing is applied.  Dressing will go down up to 2 tons a green with matting and brushing after to get the sand into the profile.  This is always a disruptive process but we will endeavour to get surfaces back in play as quickly as possible.

With summer holidays in full swing our neighbours have kindly started digging up Priors greens and removing markers from ponds.  Once we get back into September more markers and rakes will be put out but until then we will manage with what we have.

Also still to be started is drainage work on the 18th Abbotts and bunker work with new sand for some of the Abbotts bunkers.

16th green on the priors.
 Dry dense thatch in the top inch followed by a further inch on wetter spongy thatch below not good.