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.

Some course views for you to guess the whereabouts, shouldn't be to difficult.  These pictures were all taken at the back end of 2012.

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