My secondment

As many of you will know by now I have been given secondment to lead the ground staff at the Phoenix. I’ve been working at Phoenix for 19 years now and I’ve applied for the job as Head 2 or 3 times in those years.
I learned most of my modern green keeping practices from Graham Pickin who in my opinion is the best Head Groundsman Phoenix has ever had (until now 🤣). Joking aside I learned a lot from Graham and put together with my studies in the HNC Golf Course Management I have developed a modern approach based on efficacy, efficiency and quality without needing a massive budget, perfect for Phoenix. You will soon see I use a more scientific approach to my decision making, I prefer fact and I believe past guessing and lack of knowledge has caused a few greens to suffer.
This blog is to update all the members on our targets, achievements, our success and failures hopefully Past failures that need amending.
Now unfortunately due to some past failings Im down on staff so don’t expect miracles from the off, we’ve a lot to do but I’m confident on improving Phoenix golf club and the whole complex.
I will update whenever a new project or job arises and post photos with descriptions and reasonings so please keep viewing

Thank you all and thank you to upper management for this opportunity and hopefully when stability regains and improvements achieved this will lead to a full appointment.

Mark Smith
Multi-sport complex manager

Comments

  1. UnknownMay 14, 2019 at 9:27 AM

    Good luck Mark! Looking forward to enjoying the fruits of your labour! All the best pal. T

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Poa flower in putting surfaces

Image
Here at Phoenix we have been managing Poa annua on our golf greens ever since they changed to being a high percentage of Poa probably 50 or 60 years ago. The old management techniques have certainly given us some problems underneath in our soils and consequently on top on our surfaces. High kg of Nitrogen per annum, too much water, height of cut too low and lots of disturbance to keep on top of organic matter has started the circle of decline and has given Poa annua the advantage it seeks over other more preferred perennial species like Bents. There are several sub species of Poa annua, old established push-up greens like here at Phoenix are 95% Poa, but I would have a guess that 90% of that is Poa annua var reptans which is the preferred species. This so called annual actually grows as an annual, a biennial and a short lived perennial. The pure annual species is more prone to death from disease and drought so is definitely not what we want in the green. All grasses flower and
Read more

10th green hydraulic leak

Image
10th green hydraulic leak As you May have noticed in spring we had a massive oil leak from one of our oldest tractors straight through the middle of our 10th green. As this was clean mineral oil from the hydraulic system it doesn’t show up on the green straight away and a couple of lines was expelled before noticed by staff. Death of the turf occurs initially from the heat of the oil but the difficulty in recovery comes from the oil taking time to leach out of the soil and break down. Oil by its nature is a water repellent which is not good for water loving grass. Unfortunately for the golf season turf was ordered but poor planning meant this died over a weekend!. My staff and I was left with a dilemma, wait to see if recovery started and over seeding actually started to germinate, or turf with a fresh piece of turf cannibalised from another green or the same green edges. We opted to try seeding but the seed just wouldn’t germinate in the hydrophobic soil profile caused by
Read more

No core aeration and why!

Image
It’s been a while since I posted a blog and that’s partly because of a busy schedule both at home and at work these days. So you may be wondering why I’ve aerated our greens and no longer pull out messy cores. The answer is a relatively simple one and it all revolves around management techniques. There’s more than one way to skin a cat and some manage their surfaces with high nitrogen feed and higher irrigation volumes to produce greens that recover well from damage and look nice and green throughout the season, others manage their surfaces with less nitrogen feed and less water that requires less of some other inputs to produce firm greens that putt well. The science behind those techniques is a simple one too. When turf grasses grow they produce thatch or Organic matter (OM), the faster they grow the faster the OM produces. We greenkeepers and groundsman force grass to grow sometimes by adding nitrogen feeds and we can also control growth by water inputs and plant growth regulators (
Read more