Greenkeeper Newsletter

Dear members,

Finally, it looks like we can welcome you all back to the course on Saturday 7^th March. This winter has been a tough one from a green’s maintenance perspective. A very warm, damp December brought high disease pressure, namely snow mould (Microdochium nivale) then the heavy snowfall throughout January and February unfortunately provided favourable conditions for the disease to spread.

We face many challenges at Simon’s through the off season mainly due to our approach of being able to play on regulation greens year-round, this puts the greens at risk of disease as a result of footfall and maintenance in the colder months where there is no growth or recovery possible. This combined with limited days/hours to be able to spray preventatively and the current regulations on the spraying of fungicides where we are able to spray the greens but unable to spray the tees and fore greens means that in the early spring months where disease has been able to take hold in some areas there is a further risk of spreading the disease either by golfers or our own staff and machinery  tracking the disease spores onto the greens. This time of year, also provides the additional challenge where the weather and play can mean there are only very small windows where we are able to spray and allow the product to dry on the grass leaf for the few hours needed for it to be effective.

As you can see from the fore greens any areas that it has been forbidden to apply fungicides have been extremely affected by the disease pressure this winter, luckily, we still have some fungicides available to prevent the disease from being as aggressive on the greens.

Many of these early spring challenges have been addressed in my previous newsletters, all of which can still be found on the Simon’s Golf Club website.

This weekend when you return to the course, you will notice yellow spray paint on the ground on the fore greens this is to make you, the golfers, aware of the areas that have active disease that could be tracked onto the greens. We ask that you please avoid these areas so that we can prevent the greens becoming further infected. Again, this is a newer approach, but it has been many years since we have had such disease pressure.

As a result of this disease there will be scarring on the greens, and our focus now is to carry out a number of operations to get the greens into tournament conditions as quickly as possible. We will apply many applications of liquid fertiliser, we will hollow core the greens with ninja tines starting next week and apply sand and repeat this procedure as planned after Easter.

Please be aware until after Easter we are as always still running with a skeleton crew. This week to prepare the course for play we have been able to spray greens, tees and fore greens with liquid fertiliser and mow fore greens and tees and roll and mow greens. We have not had the opportunity to address bunkers (so you may find there is a considerable amount of snow still in some bunkers), and this will not be our priority in the weeks ahead as greens will be the main focus, should time allow we will definitely address greenside bunkers followed by fairway bunkers.

It has been five years since we’ve experienced a bad Spring following heavy, prolonged snow fall and from experience the club’s birthday, 24th May, is a good date to aim for as the soil temperatures by then should be consistently above 6°, night frosts before that can slow recovery growth. Hopefully though the weather will work in our favour, although we have no way of predicting this, but we may reach our goal before then.

We will soon be returning the robots to the course following their thorough winter service and a new update makes them even more effective.

The large drainage project from B9 across A8 and A3 to the motorway has continued through January and February and should be completed this month. We are aware there is some repair work to be done due to the heavy excavators crossing the course, this will also be addressed in March should weather allow.

We have found a fantastic solution for the winter mat positions on the course, however they won’t be able to be implemented until autumn.

Expect the winter course to remain in place until after Easter including preferred lies. Frost delays can be expected this weekend and over the next 2 months.

Sincerely none of us wish to be in this position at season start however I believe we are in it together with regards to our approach, it is a calculated risk and on occasion the weather will work against us, but rest assured my team and I are extremely optimistic and committed to fight every day to ensure we offer the best conditions possible to you, our members.

Kind regards,

Reamonn O’Neill
Golf Course Superintendent