Greenkeepers Blog

June 2023

With the Club Championship weekend just around the corner, it means we're about to enter July with the midpoint of the summer upon us, and
plenty of sunshine ahead of us. The golf course is happily positioned to cope with the current weather and we're a long way from the intense heat
of last year and the serious lack of rain a distant memory. The summer of 2023 has been helped greatly by the amount of rain that preceded it. In
2022 we had a total of 113mm January through April, in 2023 this total was 294mm. The difference is significant and it is reflected in the current
course condition, especially across the approaches and fairways. The next 6-8 weeks, with the temperatures as they are, interspersed with the
recent thunderstorms and rainfall, will greatly help the top half of fairways. The green brown green phase as I like to call it is something we must work with and will certainly work to our advantage come the Autumn.

The introduction of the divot bags and rootzone has been very well received and we now see far less divots and plenty of old divots filled in, so
everyone who has taken the time to do this THANK YOU. As usual we have been very busy across the golf course. The approaches that we extended
last year have really added to the golf course and we're more than happy how they have turned out. The series of mounds that we left to grow have
also added to the aesthetics of the golf course, the continued management of these areas are vital to keep them both as a feature and a
hazard and are an important part of our maintenance program. The winter work carried out on the tees has greatly helped their ability to stay healthy
and improved the soil’s ability to retain moisture. We now have a better maintenance program in place to keep the tee boxes in better shape and
although we have plenty of work to still do, but we are very happy with the changes made over the last year.

We have now added more sand to a lot of the bunkers (this is an ongoing project) and in some instances haven’t needed to add any sand. Instead,
we would use hand tools to rotavate the existing bunker sand to alleviate the compaction, we then redistribute the sand across the bunker. When
we add the new sand to the bunkers, we then hose the base of the bunker with water and use a whacker plate to help compact the sand, this takes a
little time and several visits for the sand to compact significantly enough. The recent summer downpours have certainly helped with this process.

For those that use the distance markers, these have all been positioned and either a red or yellow dot marked on the ground so that the posts can
be returned to the correct location if you are required to remove the posts to play your shot. Eventually all of the posts will be placed in ground
anchors making it easier to just remove and return the posts to the correct location. This will be carried out once the ground conditions are more
suitable.

My team and I would like to thank you all, for the appreciation extended to us for the work we are doing. Coombe Wood is a little gem of a golf course and rightly deserves the care and attention it is currently getting. The work preceding my tenure had a large part to play in what we have been able to achieve in the small time that I have been Course Manager.

Richard Hill

Head Greenkeeper

Click here to see the previous month's blogs...

                                                                                                                    April 2023

February 2023

                                                                                                                    January 2023

December 2022

November 2022

October 2022

August 2022

July 2022

June 2022