Club News

Busy Busy Busy!

Greens renovations went really well last week and recovery is coming along nicely. The new seed from overseeding of the greens is ‘flying’ through as you can see. Yesterday morning they received a further top dressing to help smooth the greens out.

The greens will be slow and a bit ‘hairy’ for a few more days yet, but by next week things should start to get back to normal so please be patient and understanding with us. Any of you that have played other Golf Courses will have seen most have also carried out these essential renovations and are at similar stages of recovery.

Zoomed in picture of the new overseeding coming through on greens

Wednesday and yesterday we have been installing drainage systems into the 1st and 13th greens. Recovery should be about 4 weeks max and should make both the greens much more playable in the wetter periods. Hopefully you will all appreciate these improvements and understand playing on a couple large temporary greens during this period of recovery.

Click on the play button below.

Inserting 25mm pipes topped up with Lytag

25mm perforated pipes are trenched in at 300mm deep and backfilled with Lytag 250mm and then the last 25mm is topped up with sand and finally overseeded

Finished and ready for seeding

Next week and the rest of September we will be installing further drainage into fairways. The plan is to add a few more primary drains to holes 4, 7 and 8, and then install mains and primary drains into holes 11 and 14. The weather and other pressing jobs will determine how much we get done but as always we will be doing our best.

September will also see the seeder to go out and overseed a few areas on fairways and some of the drainage lines from our work in the Spring.

Early October we will be finishing off reinstating the bunkers at 2 and 4 and seeding the old bunkers at 1 and 8. We will also start installing secondary drainage, weather and ground conditions permitting, will start installing secondary drainage to certain fairways weather and ground conditions permitting?

I am getting lots of requests re the Irrigation Lake in regards to how its going, how long it will take, what will it looked like when finished to mention a few. Hopefully you appreciate we have been busy with renovations etc the last couple of weeks, but i intend to find the time next week to take some video of the area and produce a separate report on just this subject. Also it will include the work will be doing at the 2nd hole

All I can tell you re the Lake for now is that its a bloody big hole !!!

Thats it for now

ENJOY YOUR GOLF ENJOY YOUR CLUB……………….I’TS YOURS REMEMBER !

FOR THE GOOD OF THE GREENS !

Monday, as in the club diary, sees us start carrying out essential greens maintenance .

I appreciate a few people may find this disruptive but it has to be done. This year we will try to keep it to a minimum but still making sure it’s for the ‘green’s ‘ benefit! I think most golfers now understand it’s vital this work is carried out.

We will be deep spiking, spiking, overseeding and then heavy topdressing greens. The reasons for this is to get vital air, thatch reduction and to relive general compaction caused by golf and machine traffic . The work gives roots a chance to flourish and the general health of the grass plant to maintain or increase. After this the greens will get a good feed to aid with their recovery.

Veri Drain
Deep verti-drain spike on the greens first
Verti drain
followed by a shallow spike

To help us get this work done as quick as we can, THE BACK 9 HOLES WILL BE CLOSED ALL DAY MONDAY 23RD AUGUST. Please be patient with us, as i have already said, its essential we get this work done.

When you do play golf next you will notice that we are preparing temporary greens on holes 1 and 13. This is because on the 1st and 2nd September we will be installing drainage into the greens on these holes. This is continuing with the drainage of greens programme we started 5 years ago. These 2 greens will be out of action for up to 4 weeks. Obviously we will be doing our best weather permitting to get them back in play as quick as we can. I will keep you updated more on this in the next couple of weeks.

Drainage of the 1st and 13th greens starts the 2nd September

It’s the time of year when also other renovation works start to happen and you may have already seen this bad boy out on the fairways scarifying them. It does a great job and doing them in August means they recover much quicker.

The big boy is out scarifying Fairways

Once September arrives we propose to carry on with the drainage work on the fairways. We intend to put a few more primary pipes on the 7th and 8th fairways and then move onto the 14th and 13th fairways with the hope of getting them completed by the early part of October again weather permitting.

Drainage works re-commence in September

I’m sure you have noticed how well they are getting on with the new Irrigation Lake, I hope to find some time to do a few drone flights over the site for you all to see.

Site clearing for the new Irrigation Lake

As you see from the photo below my staff have been getting used to their new toy ! A boat ! to keep on top of the reeds

Simon drew the short straw!

That’s it for now , I will post how we are getting on later next week

Regards

Geoff

Enjoy your Course Enjoy your Club……………it’s your’s remember!

WE ARE DIGGING A HOLE

On Monday I am pleased to announce that we will commence construction of our Irrigation Lake. This is the 3rd phase of our Irrigation and Drainage plan which we set out 4 years ago.

Vineyards and Wineries: Lake and Pond Management
An example of an Irrigation Lake

For those interested, it will hold approx 34,000 cubic metres when full. To put this into perspective its about the volume of about 14 Olympic swimming pools !

Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park: Aquatics Centre - Water Sports -  visitlondon.com
An Olympic swimming pool holds 2500 cubic metres of water

Part of the contractors remit will also be to clear out, reshape and reseal the pond between the 4th and 5th. This pond we will then feed drainage pipes into from various holes to ‘catch’ water and in turn from this pond we will pipe water into the new Irrigation Lake.

The contractors will also be using some of the excess soil to ‘bank up’ behind the 2nd green, we will also be making the 2nd green slightly bigger and finally they will be digging out the 2nd pond and hopefully resealing it.

It will take approx 6-8 weeks to complete if all goes to plan! Hopefully there will not be too much disturbance to your Golf but please be patient . We do not envisage any hole closures whilst the main lake is built but we will have to close the 2nd hole for approx 5 days when those works are done. We may also either have to move the tees forward or close the 4th hole when this pond is repaired.

So all exciting stuff and making us much more self sufficient and great use of recycling water. I will keep you updated on the progress of the works and will also record some Drone footage for you to see the works.

If you wondered why we have had tree works done on the 13th hole this week, this was being done by the Electricity Board as the Trees were too close to the high voltage overhead cables.

Hopefully you have been enjoying your Course the last few months despite the ‘not great’ weather.

Congratulations to Mandi and Lol our new Captains.

We will be commencing our Summer renovations w/c 23rd of August but I will give you more details of that in the next couple of weeks

Regards

Geoff

Enjoy your Golf Course , Enjoy your club………..it’s yours remember!

What are these !!!!

I am sure most of you already know what these are and the problems they cause but I want to educate those that don’t .

This picture of the 8th green shows thousands of grubs called leatherjackets which basically are the grubs that turn into a crane fly( aka Daddy long legs). Their eggs are normally laid in late summer -Autumn and once hatched basically feed off the roots of grass and if not got rid of can cause terrible damage and even total loss of grass cover. They are and are found pretty much everywhere and some years are worse than others depending on many factors. Until 3 years ago we had a pesticide, chlorpyriphos, that we could legally spray and they were totally eradicated . This pesticide is now banned and we have very little single effective treatment to get rid of the darling little things!

This year we are suffering with them on the following areas the 1st,3rd,8th,13th,17th and the putting green, and also the 18th fairway. All we can do is now use a combination of various methods.

SOME PEOPLE THINK THIS IS JUST ABRIDGE THAT GET THEM !! If I was that lucky I would do the Lottery !

Please ,if you are one of those who think it’s just Abridge GC, for your own education of the problem we are facing either right click on this link below or copy and paste it in your web browser to read a very interesting and clear explanation of the problem. We are not making excuses we are telling you the honest truth about an issue ALL Golf Clubs have got!

https://www.lawn-tech.co.uk/blog/pests/leather-jacket-control-in-lawns-new-eu-legislation-bans-pesticides/

The methods we can try legally now and have been the last two years are 4 fold. Accelypryn, this is an emergency licensed pesticide which has some effect but not a total cure. Nematodes, this is a biological way of getting rid of them, they do work but you need very very precise conditions to make them work. Vegetable Oil, this is something being trialled and seems to suffocate the leatherjacket but again you need precise conditions. ‘Sheeting off‘. This is literally covering areas off with large dark plastic sheets overnight, it seems to bring the leatherjackets to the surface. This does bring a lot of them to the surface but not all of them. The issue with this is we have to take the sheeted area out of play from the afternoon until the next morning. We will continue to do this though over the next couple of weeks . Please see the video below.

Leatherjackets being ‘sheeted out’

Sheeting off the 8th green

Sorry the last bit of that video also contained a clip of the damage the heavy rain caused last night! Another nice little issue the dreadful week of weather we are having, but at least we know the drainage is working!

So as you have now hopefully read we do have a problem and as always we are trying , like all other Golf Clubs, to do as much as we legally can do ! Regrettably, a few Golf Courses may still be spraying things they should not be! it should be a level playing field?

I know Lol Green sent a link to a much more in depth explanation . Copy and paste the link below. It’s an hour long presentation but I ask that if you do get time please watch, as this issue is all about education and getting you as Golfers to understand the issue?

https://www.bigga.org.uk/resource/managing-the-leatherjacket-challenge.html

To sum up hopefully in the next week or so we will have thrown every bit of ammunition and the warmer growing conditions arrive we will out compete the leatherjackets and the areas affected by leatherjackets will start to recover. It’s been a terrible spring for grass conditions but it is what it is , we are where we are and we will always be trying our best!

Who would be a Greenkeeper!!

Most of you are very understanding and those that are not so understanding I ask you read and watch the articles i have posted.

Sorry for going on but I have to get this message across !

Bunkers getting topped up next week !

Enjoy you Course , Enjoy your Club …………It’s your’s remember!

Frustrating times, but hopefully higher temperatures are on the way!

This very strange cold, dry weather we have experienced the last month or so continues to test all Greenkeepers and puts us under immense pressure to try and get things ‘ kick started’ We have no magic wands I am afraid to make grass grow in cold dry just above freezing temperatures. This April, as I understand, was one of the coolest and driest April’s on record and Monday’s bank holiday was the coldest ever recorded early May Bank holiday, so please be patient with us we are doing our best and are very ready to start manicuring your Golf Course as soon as we get some proper growth and some decent temperatures. As I write this (Saturday 8th May) the rain has arrives, 17mm in 4 hours to be precise and slightly warmer. Ha ha and as i finish this article off (Monday 10th May) the nightime temperature has been 10 degrees so maybe the start of growing is coming!

Below is an article that appeared in the Telegraph a couple of days ago which I thought you might find interesting. Copy and paste the link on your internet browser.

https://howdidido.blob.core.windows.net/clubsitespublic/file_6d53a04c-f0d0-410a-bfa8-33640d264d67.pdf

I thought I would answer a few more of your questions

Drainage works
Drainage works on 18th fairway
  1. How is the drainage going and why did you stop doing the 10th hole

The drainage is going well despite the issues with the 10th. It’s a lot harder doing the installation with Golfers playing than when we were in Lockdown last year and the Course was shut, but I obviously don’t wish for closures again. 18th’s Mains and primary drainage is all complete and we are well on the way to completing the 16th hole this week . The reason we had to stop doing the 10th was because there was an issue with the irrigation cables not being installed deep enough. Whilst we were trenching we hit cables 5 times so we soon realised there was a problem . Our Irrigation contractors came straight out to see us and have confirmed that they are not happy with the depth of the cables on the 10th. All cables have been repaired and now working. We could carry on and dig around the cables by hand which would take a lot longer and risk further damage, but the contractors wish to come and re-install the cables at a deeper depth later in the year. So we have moved onto the 16th which has been one of the wettest fairways the last few years. To improve the results we have reduced the spacings between each of the primary drain lines. This obviously then takes longer to do but will be worth it. The plan is to carry on this week where we will complete the 16th and go back to holes 7 and 8 and add some more primary drains to these holes. We will then stop for a few months as we really appreciate everyone’s patience during the upheaval of drainage works and want to allow you all to enjoy ALL of your golf course. We aim to start further drainage later in the year and we also have a couple more ditches to get done.

2. When will the Bunkers be topped up with Sand and the ones that we have started filling in be finished?

As soon as we get the drainage out of the way this week , we will start topping up bunkers with new sand. We also will be soiling and either turfing or seeding the Bunkers that are to be filled in. Finally we will re-construct the bunker at the 2nd Green and 4th Fairway bunker.

3. Greens are still bobbly, when will this be sorted?

Once again this is all to do with night time temperatures and lack of growth. As i have already said this has been a stupidly cold dry Spring. Forecast after this weekend is for it to start warming up so fingers crossed. We are and will be doing all that we can to get things moving.

4. There are a lot of soil piles around the edges of the course, will they be tidied up?

We are very aware of this and once the drainage is finished next week we will be reusing a lot of the soil to fill the chosen Bunkers in . We will also be getting the Digger out and shaping the piles around the Golf course.

Well that’s it for this time hope you have all found the info useful. W/c 17th May we will hopefully have the conditions to Verti-cut and topdress greens plus start giving all surfaces a nice feed and manicure.

Enjoy your Course, Enjoy your Club …………..It’s yours remember !

Questions answered.

Hi all, hope you are all enjoying your Golf, even though it’s flipping cold! Amazing that we are getting frosts every morning presently and temperatures not getting above single figures during the day, the grass on surfaces have just gone ‘back into Winter mode’

First I must mention that we are commencing further drainage works now that conditions are perfect . Apologies if this causes any inconvenience to any of you but the work needs to be done if we are to continue with our investment of making the Course drier during the Winter months.

We plan to install the main and primary drains over the next 3-4 weeks on holes 18,16 and 10. This means on certain days a hole will be closed so we will be using the green next to the 8th as the extra hole . I will update you all each day as to whats going on and thank you for your understanding (hopefully !).

Ok, I have been asked a few questions by a few members so I will attempt to answer them

  1. What are all the lines on the fairways and tees?

The lines are where we have been overseeding. All tees have been overseeded The fairways, where there is damage from the Winter’s drainage works and damage from Leatherjackets/Bird pecking have also been overseeded. The machine creates a perfect groove and automatically drops seed into it. The very cool temperatures we are experiencing presently means we have to be patient as it will take longer for the seed to start ‘popping’ and filling in the areas. In a few weeks the lines will have gone.

It’s gone very dry why are we not watering?

From going from yet another wet record breaking Winter, we have gone very cool and dry in 4 weeks! Most Golf Managers I talk to in Essex are all praying for some natural rain. If we water in these temperatures with cold ‘mains’ water it merely sends the grass into ‘shock’ and can actually stop it trying to grow as the grass thinks it’s in Winter. However slowly but surely this week night time temperatures are rising and we are also watering a bit during the day once temperatures rise so thats why you may see some sprinklers on when you play.

When will the greens that have some bare patches recover?

The areas damaged from the excessive wet weather and leatherjacket issues have been overseeded and we really just need some warmer temperatures and dare i say a little rain and these areas will start to recover

Why does the 18th fairway and certain areas look ‘weak?

The 18th fairway has suffered from Leatherjacket damage this Winter, aswell as a few areas on the 1st, 3rd and 8th fairways. The grubs attack and feed on the roots making the grass plant weak, then the Birds realise there are grubs under the surface and start pecking and destroying the Turf to feed on the grubs. With all Chemicals that eradicated this 100% now presently banned we have very little options but to just let nature take its course. However, overseeding and fertilising will soon get these areas back in shape.

On Tuesday and Thursday this week what was being sprayed it smelt awful!?

Our new GPS Sprayer in use

I personally like the smell but I know many of you didn’t! It’s basically a ‘natural’ fertiliser of Sugars and Molasses, that gives carbohydrates and other beneficial nutrients to the grasses roots which encourages recovery from the Winter and root damage such as leatherjackets. It assists in ‘waking the plant up’ and also helps with seed germination.

The mapping system on our Sprayer

A bit of technology info now if you like that sort of thing. Our new sprayer is fitted with a very sophisticated Gps system. We have mapped all areas of the Golf course and categorised them . This mean for example when we want to a spray a certain area we type in where we are and the area appears green on the screen. We then have to drive the sprayer over this area and the spray nozzles only spray where needed , colouring in the green area grey. The advantages of this are many, but to name a few, accurate use of Chemicals, no overlap or potential ‘miss’ issues, spraying only the areas required and not wasting Chemicals.

Hope you have found these questions and answers useful?

Please be patient the next few weeks while we wait for temperatures to pick up and the grasses to start growing properly . And also remember the drainage works are essential.

That’s it for now I’m off to buy myself some new Sketcher Golf Shoes’ that Jack’s just started stocking in his shop! Go and see for yourself they are awesome !

Enjoy your Course, Enjoy your Club………..it’s yours remember!

Great to have you back, but ?

Hi everyone and so great to see you all back enjoying your Golf Course!

Hopefully you will agree the Course is in pretty good condition considering its only early April! Hopefully you will also have noticed a lot of the jobs my hard working Greenstaff have done during this third Lockdown. Its great to see full tee time sheets and everyone safely enjoying themselves, even though our routine jobs are taking twice as long now!

The reason for the ‘BUT ‘ in the title of this report is that I have to strongly complain, to what I’m sure is only a few of you, but none the less extremely disappointing of some basic Golf Etiquette and correct procedures being ignored that as Golfers you should ALL be adhering to !

I cannot believe that in just 4 days of Golfers returning the ridiculous amount of Pitch Marks that are being left not repaired on all of the Greens. A few of you will be complaining about ‘bumpy inconsistent greens in a few weeks? Please do not complain to me or my staff! Moan at your fellow Golfers for not doing their job ! The damage done to a Golf Green by not repairing yours or any others pitch marks is incredible.

I AGAIN below have included a video of showing you the damage a pitch mark makes and how you correctly repair your pitchmark or any others you may see.

How to repair a pitch mark

The picture below shows what we discovered on Wednesday morning at the back of the 5th Green. It looks like somone has hit a bad shot and then in anger just took a swipe and chunk out of the green! DON’T ! If you make a bad shot ,moan, explete, gesticulate or get a Lesson from Jack! DON’T take it out on the Golf Course please.

Finally please explain to me why if a sign says No Trollies past this point, or No Trollies this way , or GUR ( Ground under repair) or Buggy’s stay on paths at ALL times! we have seen many golfers disobeying these requests? Do those that ignore these signs think they are special that the signs don’t apply to them? Or do they just not care about your Golf Course?

If you see any of your fellow golfers doing any of the above please tell them to stop.

As I said earlier my staff and myself have worked very very hard to give you the best possible course we could give you for your return in March, especially considering the awful wet Winter we have had. It’s quite insulting to see how quickly a few of you want to just abuse ‘Your Golf Course’ and then expect us to make it all magically right.

We have so much planned over the next few weeks and months to create an amazing Course, however, I ask that you don’t create more work for us than is necessary so we can get on with jobs we need and want to do to continue to improve Your golf course!

That’s the moan over but I hope those these moans apply to listen and act. Plans for the next 4 weeks are to finish verti-draining all fairways, overseed tees, fairways and other areas where needed. Greens and other surfaces get a feed next week or so, and as and when its right to do so, we will start lowering heights of cut on certain areas. We are also continuing with some of the ditch work and getting ready to draining the 18th and 16th fairways. We are also continuing with the bunker reshapes and ‘fill ins’

Once again welcome to all of our new members and welcome back to all of our loyal existing members, it’s great to see you all.

Enjoy your Course , Enjoy your club……..It’s yours remember !

WELCOME EMILY & PAUL

Dear Members,
We are delighted to welcome Paul Holland and Emily Perry to Abridge Golf & Country Club. Paul and Emily are both European Tour Level Coaches from Elite Performance Management and they will be offering various coaching services to all abilities, including a Junior Academy, Sam Putt Lab Technology and Golf Mindset Services.

Please find attached their April Coaching flyer which includes information on their Masters Clinics, April Special Offers and other coaching information. 
Feel free to get in touch with them with any questions or to book in for a lesson. 

Are you Ready ? We are!

Well I hope you are excited about your return to your Golf club next Monday. As I wrote to you all a few weeks ago we have been very busy when the weather has played ball!

The wet weather has continued through March up until last week. Thankfully we have had a good dry last 7 days allowing us to get on with some of the jobs i mentioned were being planned.

My staff have worked exceedingly hard the last few months during very difficult times and I hope you will all appreciate these circumstances have been challenging for us all.

I would like to welcome our new member of staff who has replaced Marc. Luke Herron joined us this week , some of you may remember him as he worked at Abridge approx 12 years ago as a junior Pro. Hopefully he will be a better Greenkeeper than he was a Golfer !

Most areas have now been cut, though there are some wet places that still need time to dry out before we can cut them.

7th Fairway

Greens have been fed and top dressed, ( don’t panic like one of our Members did earlier this week! , they have not been smothered in sand, just a light dressing to help smooth them out, it’s far too early for any heavy sanding) and the greens are now at their normal March/ April height of cut and are starting to recover nicely from the wet Winter.

Greens coming on nicely for the time of year

All Bunkers have been edged, weeded, heavily raked and put back in play. We have managed to get a few of the ‘fill in’ bunkers turfed and I ask you to please keep of all of the new turf.

Bunkers looking good

The driving Range Tee has also been finished and the mats have been moved to the front of the tee while we let the turf ‘knit in’. The club and Jack have invested a lot of time and money to give you a great new practice Tee and I ask that you please keep off at all times until it’s ready to use. This applies to all of you !!

Turf being laid and watered on the New Driving Range Tee

We are ahead of schedule on some of the Jobs and a little behind on others. Thank you to Del Morgan and Barry Francis who gave up some of their time last weekend to help out with some jobs. I would also like to thank Lol ‘Mr Abridge’ Green for all his help, he can be seen most days getting his daily exercise wandering around the course sorting little jobs out!

The Wildlife have been enjoying the peace and quiet, and as much as it’s lovely to see it and we often disturb their ‘private garden’ we are all really excited about re-opening and no doubt being told off by a few for disturbing you as Golfers!

Munch-jack rarely seen when Golfers are around
Deer on the 7th tee

It’s such a great time to be a Member of Abridge GC as there has been so much invested on the Course and in the Clubhouse in the last few years and so much more planned ! To have a waiting list to join us as a member now is a great sign that most of you appreciate what we are trying to achieve and we are getting a great reputation of the ‘place to be’!

I welcome all of our New Members that are joining , please make yourselves known to my staff as they are all quite friendly and always happy to answer any questions you might have.

I also welcome seeing all of you, our existing Members, back to our Club from next Monday. Hope you are ready ?

WE ARE!

Enjoy your Golf , Enjoy your Club………..It’s yours remember!

Geoff

Course Manager

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