Dear all, it’s been a hot one!!

Hopefully you have been out and enjoying the Golf Course. Everyone seems to be very happy with the course and greens and I would like to take this opportunity to thank my staff who are working incredibly hard and some very long hours!

As you are all aware the irrigation system is planned to be replaced in September, until then we are doing the best we can to keep everything going. As fast as we fix a pipe another one seems to burst! The water bowser is out pretty much 24/7, (yes some of the staff including me have been watering through the night this week), and we will continue to do this as necessary. The ‘Travelling Sprinklers’ that you will have seen on the fairways are doing a reasonable job and again these are going most of the time. PLEASE do not touch these sprinklers or the wires they are attached to.

All of this watering obviously takes up an amazing amount of manpower, some jobs are therefore having to be put back in order of priority so I hope you will understand if some things are not done.

On that note thank you very much to all of you that are helping with Lol Greens’ Divot a Fairway Scheme’, it does make a difference. 

Well done to the Club in their achievements at the Metropolitan and I hope you are all looking forward to the Club Championships! We will be doing our best to keep the course in its best condition; hopefully we will have a little rain before then? Please note that as we prepare the course, especially the greens, for the Club Championships, we will rest certain areas so that we can bring everything up to speed, (especially the greens!!).

Hope you all continue to enjoy your Course and Club.

Regards

Geoff

Course Manager

Dear All, Well we finally got the rain !!!

I hoped you all enjoyed the Captains away day, sorry i could not be there but i had an appointment with Mr. VanGerwan and Mr. Taylor last night that was an amazing experience.

What a difference a bit of moisture makes to the course! All the seed and fertiliser that has been put out the last few weeks waiting for the rain has now started kicking lovely. Over the next few days we will see a massive ‘green up’ and growth spurt. We are very confident the course will keep improving now we have had some decent rain.
This does mean for a few days we will have issues with grass clippings owing to wet cuts, but an issue i and the Greenstaff are happy to have !

The greens were very wet after the deluge of rain the last couple of days, and we were unable to cut them this morning. This does mean they maybe a little slow today and possibly over the weekend.
Many people have been reporting that the greens have been playing great the last few weeks which is good to hear considering we have not ramped up the work on them yet.
On monday the greens will be aerated, verti-cut, topdressed and fed.
They will also receive a fungicide as there is a fair bit of disease about owing to the humid wet conditions. We will then now start reducing the greens and other areas to their ‘summer height of cut’
over the next few days.

Please remember to rake bunkers if you go in them and to repair your pitchmarks, it really does make a difference.

Enjoy your Course, its yours remember!

Regards

Geoff
Course Manager

What crazy weather we have!

We have just had over two months of no rain and rather pleasant temperatures of 20 degrees, but as I write this it’s now May, drizzling and it’s about 10 degrees! Who would be a Greenkeeper!

The weather certainly keeps us busy and stressed, hopefully, one day, we will be able to control it.

We have, as promised by the club, been repairing and patching up the parts of the irrigation system we can, but that is creating in places new issues! Lol Green, Lesley Allsuch and myself have been meeting with Irrigation companies and suppliers getting everything ready for the new installation commencing August all things going to plan. More details of this once things have been decided.

Just to keep you all up to date with the course. Despite being very dry we are really pleased with the way the course is coming back.  The overseeding of the fairways and other areas, whilst would benefit from more rain, are slowly germinating. We have where possible carried out some watering and whilst this has not been great, now with the added rain we are experiencing things are starting to grow. We will be applying fairway fertilizer this week and the benefits will be seen once the temperatures return a little.

On the subject of fairways I would like to thank ‘THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN’ members, who generously came to help with divoting the fairways. It was brilliant to see members help to improve their course. Also to the ‘FAMOUS FIVE’ that turned up Thursday but we had to unfortunately postpone. It was a shame that a few more did not turn up, especially the few that complain about the lack of divoting at times. 

We have a few to finish still and therefore so nobody feels like they missed out the chance to spend a few hours with the Greenstaff!! We are having another session on Thursday 11th May, (next Thursday) to finish them off.  Please let myself, Lol Green or the office if you want to help, it really is appreciated.

The greens are running pretty good for this time of year and we now intend to start bringing them up to summer condition, they will receive on Monday some heavy verti-cutting, a feed followed by a top dressing. We will then commence our planned programme of little and often spiking, feeding, verti-cutting, grooming, topdressing and ironing.

Lol and myself are experimenting with some different heights of cut on rough, semi rough and greens surrounds. We are now working on getting the practice green back in play and also finishing off the 9th bunkers.

Hope you are all enjoying your golf and the weather warms up, but pray for a few more showers yet please!

Regards,

Geoff
Course Manager

Good afternoon all,

Finally it is forecast to stop raining!!! Let’s hope they are right?

Thank you to those of you have been so supportive for what as far as I can remember has been one of the longest (not necessarily the wettest) spells of rain we have had for many many years. We are over 50% up on last year’s rainfall.  Nearly all golf courses in Essex have been soaked; it’s very frustrating for us all.

As the Captain said in his message earlier this week we are now planning the third phase of our project which is creating more suitable course conditions to play winter golf. As soon as these are agreed by the Board we will let you all know the plans.

With regards to trolleys and buggies we are ‘Damned if we do, Damned if we don’t ‘ I can honestly say when myself or my staff make decisions re what can be used on the course and what cannot, we try to take everybody’s needs into consideration and what is best for the golf course.

The 6.30 am answer phone we use to update conditions is very hard to get right until a course inspection has taken place. We do update the message if things change. I totally understand people’s frustrations, I am sure you can imagine how soul destroying these weather conditions have been for me and my dedicated staff.

As we now hopefully start to dry out its going to take a while for us to get back to where we all want to be with the course. The grass is growing rapidly and it’s too wet to get heavy machinery out on the course. At the earliest opportunity we will be out there and my staff are ready and willing for some very long hours the next few weeks to get things right.

All I can ask is for some patience and understanding as we try to do this

Thank you again

Geoff
Course Manager