I hope you’re well and surviving this strange run of weather we’ve been experiencing.
I’d like to start off by giving you an update on the 14th green and the new tees the team built over the winter.
The green has been making extremely slow progress due to the cooler overnight temperatures leading to a surface frost in the mornings. We’d hoped the bare areas would’ve filled in completely by now after the overseeding, unfortunately the weather throughout April, a combination of cold and dry conditions gave the Bent seed very little chance of germinating. Up until now we’ve adopted the process of using the main green during medal play but removing for general play, the idea was to give the green the best chance to recover by reducing the footfall. The areas of concern have now reduced enough for us to plug some of the areas. The idea is to remove the bare plug from the green, swap it with a plug from the edge of the green which will knit in improving the playing surface.
From this Saturday (8th May) the main green will be back in play moving forward.
Over the last few weeks, we’ve been slowly reducing the height of cut on the new tees, also increasing cutting to twice weekly. To start with we’re going to adopt a similar process as the 14th green by putting the markers in position during medal play and removing for general play. The plan is to follow this strategy for the next couple of weeks and hopefully with the rise in temperature it’ll allow us to keep the markers in position.
Last week our new woodchipper arrived and the team have been putting it through its paces. The 4th, 6th and 18th paths have all been topped up with fresh chippings, the remaining paths will be finished off next week.
Below are before and after shots of the path at the 6th.
The weather has been causing us all sorts of problems this last month, the work we carried out to level the drain lines unfortunately suffered with the dry conditions, this led to the turf shrinking. We applied a wetting agent to aid recovery allowing the turf to retain moisture after the recent rainfall. More topdressing and overseeding will be carried out over the next few weeks.
Over the next week the weather is looking slightly more favourable to aid with our need for a bit more growth to help with recovery from the winter wear. This time last year when I arrived for my first look at the course the place was in full bloom, fingers crossed we’re not too far away from the picture below this year (taken on the 29th May, 2020).
We also recently had the STRI out on the course and they have delivered their report. Should you wish to have a read of that, then you will find it on the Club website by following the link below. It is housed in the Members area of the website, under course and then STRI reports from the drop-down menu.
https://www.pollokgolf.com/membersarea/pdf%20files/STRI_Report_May_2021.pdf
Kind regards,
Andy, Course Manager
