Greens

The STRI made its annual visit earlier this week: their report will be published once we’ve received it.

We vary the timing of their visit each year so they get a chance to see the course and the greens at different stages of the season. The timing this year was fortunate because of our concern over the slow development of the greens and  STRI confirmed many other courses are experiencing similar problems.

The STRI findings are based on a detailed and consistent analysis of the greens; initial discussions suggest that although the appearance and smoothness is not good, they are actually running true and at a reasonable speed. However, there is some evidence of compaction below the surface and some greens have too many varieties of grass. Chemical treatment should alleviate the latter and continued aeration and sand dressing the former.

The  main cause of the problem with the greens this year,  was the late core tining last year, followed by the weather conditions which have affected us in two ways:

- heavy rain washed away the top dressing after tining; we could have re-dressed the greens, but did not for fear of potential damage,  as we were then in November.

- the cold weather combined with Easterly winds have meant that the greens have been slow to grow this year. Soils temperature is currently several degrees below what is expected by mid May.  

The key lesson is that we should core tine earlier in the year: August is the recommended optimum time. As I noted previously, the timing of tining is a problem. We have few visitors in August, and the only major event is Captain’s Day, but it is a time when many members play. September is often our busiest month for visitors and we have the pro-am and a couple of opens: our last open day is in October.

This timing will be discussed at the next committee meeting but it is likely (as suggested in the Christmas newsletter) that we will tine at least some of the greens in August so they have a chance to fully recover by September and therefore winter. We are well aware of the problems with the greens this year and will be doing what we can to improve matters.