Phoenix Golf Club

You may notice over the next week or so a few drainage channels on a few greens. This is vital work that will ensure the survival of the turf with all the wet weather we have been having. Early summer was wet with August our best month and a total contrast to the dry 2018 we had, the middle of September onwards has been a constant barrage of Atlantic low pressure systems dumping way too much rain and well above average (see graph). We actually over took our yearly total average in the second week of October and we haven’t hit winter yet, great!. All this rain means one thing for turf, lack of oxygen. Most people think that turf grows in soil, and while that’s correct in one way it’s actually wrong. The soil is literally an anchor for roots and supply’s vital nutrients, but the roots of the grass plant actually grows in the gaps in the soil and there for grows in an oxygen rich environment. When we have excessive rain this forces the oxygen out of the soil, the roots begin to retrea...

Drainage is categorised in to two main groups, primary drainage and secondary drainage. Primary drainage is the mains and lateral pipe work set deep within the soil profile and is designed to pull or carry larger quantities of water from within the soil profile or carry the water to an outlet like a pond or dyke and in drainage terms your dykes are primary drainage. Secondary drainage is any act upon the surface through soil profile linking up to your primary drainage. This can be anything from your vertidrain to sand slitting or gravel banding and is usually accompanied by an inert material like sand or gravel to help infiltration of water through the soil profile. On Monday the 26th and Tuesday the 27th of August thanks to Ben our business manager for the investment and agreeing funds and Danny Boardman for agreeing the short term disruption for long term gain, we are performing secondary drainage on four of our worst performing greens, in the form of sand drainage channels. The sa...

Regular and seasonal aeration is essential to ensure turfgrass quality and is maintained throughout the playing seasons of any fine turf with heavy wear. The impact of not having a regular aeration programme will inevitably result in lost or cancelled fixtures, which could result in lost revenue and substandard playing surfaces So, why do we need to aerate? The turf grasses are grown on a medium known as the rootzone, which is a mixture of sand, silt and clay perfect for a growing medium. The rootzone is made up of differing proportions of soil solids (mineral and organic material) and soil pores (for water and air).  The key part of aeration is to maintain the correct balance of air and water within the rootzone and that means creating pores. These pore spaces can vary in size and are generally classified into two sizes - macro pores (larger than 0.08mm) and micro pores (less than 0.08mm). Macro pores generally allow movement of air and the drainage of water, and are larg...

So a successful captains day from the ground staffs point of view and hopefully from golfs as well. Here without bursting too many bubbles I’m going to explain why this standard isn’t sustainable all year, but at least you know it’s achievable without the variables I’m about to explain. This week was mainly a free calendar from other sports, we had a the cricket to cut and the bowling green to still maintain but no football. This is something that is going to change shortly with football season upon us and this quality of golf course is no longer achievable, but that doesn’t mean we won’t push for high standards it just means captains day was a peak. My first arrangement was to ask Ben, our Business Manager, for a few extra hours and extra staff at the weekend, which he was happy with. Achieving a quality course wasn’t easy, although most of the rain that was forecast stayed away, what did come and the dewy mornings made the cutting messy, especially in the semi rough. So...

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 be...

You may ask why punch holes and add sand just when the greens was becoming good. Well there’s a long and a short answer and anyone who knows me knows which one I’m going to give!. Try not to fall asleep on me 😴😂 We will be performing several tasks and each one has its benefits long term. The good news for you is that summer aeration mainly consists of smaller holes more often and less sand more often, together with good growing conditions means a speedy recovery and great surfaces fast. The team will be verticutting, cutting, sarrel rolling then applying approximately 5 tonne of sand bringing our total this year to 65 tonnes. The following day an application of wetting agent, seaweed, humid acid and liquid aeration will be applied. Below is a description of what each process is and why we are performing each task. Verticutting The verticut units are like mini knives spinning vertically removing debris, standing up lateral growth, removing seed heads, leaving a seed bed to help f...