Phoenix Golf Club

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

Many of you may be wondering why the front of the 12th tee had became wet again last year, then ask why these unsightly drains haven’t been filled in!. One obvious reason was the tremendous amount of rain that fell. Once the beast from the east moved away and the jet stream moved north, this pulled weather system after weather system   In off the Atlantic which could only mean one thing RAIN!. From the 1st of March to the 31st of April 2018 Phoenix golf club suffered 226 mm of rain!!. The second reason the 12th tee area became so wet again was the drainage system. Graham did a magnificent job designing the open drainage system in the area but they are exactly that, open. They are actually called french drains and collect surface water before it soaks and saturates. Every year the drains need maintenance to keep them open which involves removing soil and organic matter  from the drain lines to keep the water flowing down them and topping up with pea gravel.  This had been a job negle