Since the country locked down and all golf courses in England was ordered to close again!, the interim golf council along with myself, the business manager and the professional staff wanted to make the most of the time to undertake a few course improvements. These are a few projects undertaken this side of Christmas with more projects to come in the new year (weather permitting)
A very difficult time for the ground staff to start with due to leaves still needing clearing on a near daily basis, grass still growing due to temperatures reaching highs of 18 degrees in November and rain events making all of those tasks almost impossible without making tyre marks and spreading mud from worm casts!. The course being closed to all apart from walkers getting their daily exercise (I know silly!) has enabled us to get a couple of jobs done and a major one started, this wouldn’t have been able to in the same time frame.
Firstly we had the artisan scheme extended to make use of some extra hands to help with some conifer canopy lifting which really looks smart and now enables you guys to play from underneath them. I think everyone lost count of the number of trailer loads of conifer brash that has been and continues to be taken away, including the business manager Ben who was happy to get his hands dirty and help out too not as an artisan but just to help out.
The attention of the ground staff was turned to the 3rd pond which was rather small in any case and was vandalised a few times. We wanted to have a collection area for water for when we receive the rainfall totals of last year again (I’ve said it now!!), but also to make it playable when it’s dry in the golf season. We basically built a large swale or rainfall collection dish, smeared the clay so it will gather water in autumn and winter, then seeded to make a playable area. There is an overflow drainage pipe installed to carry any excess water away. Once the seed germinates and we have grass cover, this area will blend into the existing topography and will be a decent feature, almost just a grass hollow.
One job that has been on the list and we have been contemplating for a while is the 10th green drainage system. After the success of the rear of the 5th green we felt confident that investing the money and time into drying this green was a must for the long term playability of this green. The green just wasn’t letting go of water and was totally unplayable last autumn and winter, this work will now mean less time on a winter green and should avoid a total rebuild taking the green out of action for around 6 month. We will not be playing on the green straight away while the turf over the drain lines root and knit in, but short term pain for long term gain is my motto. This will not mean the green will never get wet, you’ve a clay subsoil to thank for that, but it will certainly dry out and dry out quicker enabling us to remain on the green during the wet season. This job was never planned to be finished before your return it is just too long of a job, but was delayed due to the trencher availability.
This photo is of the the green last year and it’s starting to turn the same way this year with less rainfall totals.
So the design was to have one carrier or main drain exiting the 11th ditch adjacent and then pull 11 laterals spaced at 2.5m intervals in a grid pattern. I chose this pattern over a herringbone to utilise the sand cat channels fully (secondary drainage work we did to several greens last year), it will mean future secondary drainage will be fully utilised, the ease of in-house installation and settling of the green afterwards bringing the green into play sooner.
The trencher was on hire from Tony Dodson and was brand new (don’t know how he trusted us to bed it in!) and once all settling in and adjustments to the belt was made the machine made light work of our sticky clay, once we got past Keith Riley’s old slag drains ( even back then this green must have been causing issues).
First job, before any tool hit the the turf was to calculate the depth and spacing of the trenches, this was done by some calculations using hooghoudts equation, some swearing, double, triple checking and more swearing before I was happy with my 2.5m spacings and 700mm depth. This gave me the 11 laterals to feed into the main. After measuring and marking out, the turf was stripped and stored on a plastic sheet. The sheet stops the turf rooting into the soil and enables us to re-use the turf to open the green up faster. The state of the soil was plain to see once the turf was stripped as you could see the anaerobic bacteria at work with the sulphur in the soil causing a black deposit called black layer. The smell from the hydrogen sulphide was like rotten eggs!🤢.
We then sheeted and boarded the site to protect the rest of the green from clay sent up from the trencher, the trencher tracks themselves and us walking everywhere shoveling the soil off into the loader tractor. Unfortunately doing drainage this time of year has its perils and that comes in the form of wet ground and tyre tracks around the area, this is unavoidable and the reason that drainage is best done in the spring or summer, not so easy to take a green out of play on a golf course with competitions etc.
The trencher was brought in and I made a stick with mark measuring my 700mm depth for checking as we went along with the trencher. I was shocked at the state of the soil that was coming out of that green, it was hard yellow and grey clay, lumps of large stone and massive pebbles 7 inch wide. The trenches started to collect water from the off in some areas and that’s a good sign obviously, and once we fill with pipe gravel and rootzone, the drains will start to pull out of the land and carry the water away.
Next steps was to clean the trenches out with spades, lay perforated pipe, top up with 10mm gravel to 400mm leaving 300mm for a 70/30 Sandy soil we call rootzone. The soil will be left to settle for a while to avoid sinkage later then we will relay the old turf over the drain lines.
Hopefully weather permitting the turf will root in fast and with a few sand dressings and some time we will back playing the green as soon as possible.
A few week without the green in play this time of year is small price to pay for the long term gain in playability year round on this green.
Comments
Post a Comment