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What extraordinary weather we have seen to begin 2020! I never thought I'd be asking for no more rain in late February but it has certainly got to that point with over 200mm falling so far this year..
The rain in the past month was of similar quantities to that of January, however February saw a number of intense storms which produced heavy rain and strong winds. This caused severe damage on numerous occasions involving fallen trees, drain washouts and bunkers become completely unrecognisable. Id like to thank the volunteers who have helped clean up the debris from the numerous storms that we have had. Finding the time to clean up this mess while maintaining the rest of the course would have proved impossible without their help and assistance. 
As the weather slowly begins to cool down, its my hope that March will bring some drier and calmer weather to help assist the course prepare for the cooler months to follow. With the soil  extremely damp for this time of year there is certainly some concern of how the course will mange through winter if we cant get some drier weather over the next few months. 

GREENS
The heavy rain over the last month has been a double edged sword for our greens. On one hand it has taken away the threat of heat stress and limited our need to be watering . This has been hugely beneficial as it has allowed us to put more focus into other areas of the golf course. 
On the other hand the constant wet and humid weather brings a whole different challenge to managing golf greens due to the increased disease pressure.  Having your greens in a healthy state before the onset of such weather certainly goes a long way to nullifying disease outbreaks, and fortunately we have been able to manage through this tricky period with very few issues. Along with good health we have also applied regular fungicide applications to help with the unfavorable conditions.
We have also attempted to speed up the greens over the past few weeks while some of our major events are taking place and Im sure this has been noticeable to the majority of our golfers. With the greens currently in good shape and a weather forecast that sees little rain and cool conditions for the next ten days, this will present us with a good opportunity to continue to speed things up for the last two rounds of the men's championships...... so be prepared.
With greens scheduled to be cored on March 23rd this will be extremely beneficial after a challenging few months of weather. 

FAIRWAYS/TEES/SURROUNDS
The biggest benefit from all this rain are the fairways, tees and surrounds. Normally by now our santa ana surfaces begin to go into summer dormancy as the dry heat begins to turn them slightly yellow in colour.  Looking at the course now you would think it was November due to its green and lush appearance. Our cool season (non couch areas) have thrived also, with the rain enabling them to survive the summer period much more efficiently than normal.
The biggest hurdle we have faced through this period is the incredibly quick growth of the grass. There were numerous times that I would look at the fairways a day after they had been cut and sigh as they already needed to be cut again. Even though we continued to apply growth regulators on a constant basis, it was no match for the constant humid and wet weather which saw these surfaces thrive. 

ROUGH
Earlier in the month we applied a very light rate of glyphosate to the majority of our rough areas which many would have noticed has turned it into a slightly yellow/orange colour. Not only does this slow the growth of the grass down to help with maintenance, but it also kills many of the unwanted weeds that we see in our rough areas. 
Our biggest weed issue this time of year is paspalum, which is a very aggressive and fast growing weed during the warmer months. This is magnified by its ability to transport its seed head through wind and water which often spreads onto our fairways and greens . Paspalum only has a limited amount of chemicals than can treat it while not damaging the areas/grass around it. Typically these chemicals are very expensive and with such a large area that needs to be treated the price is magnified even more. In an ideal world we would spray the entire course each year to target the paspalum, but budget limitations make this extremely difficult to do. Manual spot spraying then becomes the only viable option which is not only time consuming but impossible to treat all affected areas throughout the entire course. This means we are never able to completely subdue the affect of paspalum throughout the property.

NEW HOLES
The new holes have certainly come along well in the past month due to perfect growing conditions. 
The greens have had continuous fertiliser applications, verti cuts and dustings through this period to help with health and density, and the greens are now strong enough to be able to handle our ride on tri plex mowers which is a great sign of their continued improvement. During the middle of the month we also dropped the cutting height down to 7mm which has helped with the lateral growth and weed management.
The fairways continue to grow strongly and we are now cutting them on a weekly basis which will help the grass grow laterally and slowly fill in the bare areas. I continue to be confident that we will have close to 85% coverage on fairways before we head into the winter period.

As summer draws to an end it generally brings a sigh of relief to any turf manager as the long hot days slowly get shorter and cooler and the stresses of turf health dies down.  Autumn is normally a wonderful time of year to play golf and with the course presenting more like the middle of Spring at the moment, I hope you can all get out over the next few weeks and enjoy numerous rounds of golf. 

Ryan Hammond
DG&CC Course Superintendent. 




 

 

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