The Duke’s Green Keeping

As greenstaff around the world know, winter is a busy time of year. Not so long ago summer seemed a long way off but there is still lots to do to prepare for the golfing season.  We may not be mowing much grass but its all hands on deck.

We took advantage of the recent snow to rally the troops to assist Austen in the workshop where we carried out an oil/filter change on the fairway mowers and also the surprisingly pernickety task of changing the bearings and seals on the pedestrian greens mowers. This should allow the greens mowers  to perform as expected at least another few years as they already had the cutting cylinders replaced last year.

During periods of frosty weather we have been mowing down as much of the long rough as possible. We cut and collect the grass so that the nutrients are removed, which in time will see a thinning of the grass allowing everyone to find there balls a bit easier.  We have also been carrying out some gorse/tree  management on the 3rd hole where we have trimmed down as much gorse as possible allowing much better visibility of the green and bunkers from the tee. Also we have removed the sapling/weed silver birch trees which were growing on the bank of the pond at the right of the 3rd hole, you can now actually see the pond!. We have also removed some trees and gorse on the 12th hole around the pond as well as behind the green which exposes double dykes (two stone walls for the non scots!)

Following the snow melt we have had some disease on the greens (fusarium patch) this will get a fungicide application as soon as weather conditions allow as it has been either too wet or windy to spray over the past week.

Some of the planned work over the next few weeks include:

• Drainage (various bunkers and some wet spots on approaches)
• Solid tining the greens
• Continue with mowing the long rough
• Sandbanding approaches

A much awaited drainage project will begin towards the end of the month, where we will be installing a drainage system on the driving range. The past few years of wet weather has seen the area deteriorate to the point where it had become increasingly difficult to collect balls which is not ideal for a driving range. I will make sure to post some photos of the work when we start the project.

Derek