There's always someone worse off......

The attached photo was sent to me by Stephen Gaze who is the Superintendent at Woollongong Golf Club and former assistant superintendent here at sanctuary cove. The picture is of his first fairway this morning and the worst of it is that they are hosting the NSW PGA in 2 weeks time. Good luck Stephen!

Another Wild Weekend

Storms over the weekend forced the closure of the golf courses on Saturday. Nearly 100mm of rain has fallen since Friday causing widespread flooding around both courses. Winds were so strong that they even managed to blow over one one of the large flagpoles at the entry to the Country Club. Additional staff have been drafted in to get the courses back in play today. We ask that all carts remain strictly on paths.

Dryject

Today we trialled a new machine called a Dryject on the small practice putting green. The machine is designed to blast small jets of water into the ground at high pressure to create air spaces. In addition to this, soil amendments can be added to the rootzone up to a depth of 150mm. The soil amendment that we used is a product called Profile which is a porous ceramic material. This material has the ability to hold onto nutrients and moisture but will not break down like traditional organic amendments. The major benefit of this process is that there is very minimal disruption to the putting surfaces and eliminates the need to carry out major hollow tining. After this very successful trial we will be looking to include the Dryject machine into our maintenance schedule next year.

Windy Weekend

We walked in to a bit of a mess this weekend after the cold and windy weekend that has just passed. Plenty of debris lying around so the blowers and vacs will be going all day to get the course tidy again.

Job well done!

Renovations of the Pines golf course were successfully completed. The rain that we were hoping for came a few hours earlier than we would have liked but we managed to get all our tasks finished successfully. I would like to thank all my staff for the long, hard hours they have put in this week and also their diligence in making sure the job was done to the best possible standard. Thank you also to our members and neighbours for their patience while we carried out this vital maintenance.

Renovations - day 2

Another fine day allowed us to continue our steady progress from the previous day. All greens are now complete. Tees and surrounds have all been scarified and scalp cut. Scarifying and verti-draining of the fairways are both on schedule. The forecast for Thursday evening is for a possible thunderstorm which would suit us perfectly to wash in all the fertiliser that we will be applying this week.

Renovations under way

Renovations on the Pines course began yesterday. In spite of a few afternoon showers the weather was extremely kind with warm windy weather allowing the team to make great progress on day one. 15 greens have already been hollow tined and scarified and 9 of them have been top dressed. 14 tees have been scarified and scalp cut. 3 fairways have been verti-drained and 2 scarified and scalp cut. Spreading of amendments on greens has also begun. With fine weather forecast for the rest of the week the course will be back in fine condition for play on Friday.