High Post Greenkeepers Blog

 

This blog post was written by newly qualified Assistant Greenkeeper Caleb Overhill. Thank you for your patience with the hole closures for our fairway maintenance. This year we top dressed the fairways with 350 tonnes of sand, Assistant Greenkeeper Pete was in charge of this job as he used to work for MJ Abbotts who are a large sports turf contracting company (just down the road). We then brushed the sand using a tractor mounted brush to incorporate it with the grass and into the surface. 

We top dress to keep the playing surface smooth to allow for good ball roll and to control thatch levels by diluting it making for a firm surface, also by using sand it reduces worm casts on the surface, as worms do not like sand-it irritates their skin, this helps us when mowing as the casts can blunt the mower blades.

Additionally, Assistant Tim and First Assistant James aerated the tees and approaches with a hollow core tine and Assistant Caleb and Deputy Luke collected the cores with core collectors which are essentially mini road sweepers. A thank you to volunteer Cliff Dowling for being our wagon driver. The hollow tine means that it removes a plug of turf. We chose to use this tine to keep on top of the thatch levels by physically removing plugs of it. We top dressed and brushed these surfaces to fill in all the holes with sand, this allows for improved drainage on these surfaces as water flows through sand easier, sand dilutes the thatch making for a healthy firm surface, by creating holes in the surface it promotes new grass growth.

The week went well with only a few breakdowns and the weather held quite nicely. These maintenance weeks are essential for the playing surfaces to be the they can and we try to get as much done as possible in every day so that we can go that bit extra and get everything back up and running ASAP, so thank you again for your patience and enjoy your golf.