Beachwood Golf Course Superintendent's Blog

by Ettienne Combrink

11th Bunker Refacing Project

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 04:22:00 +0000

Over the past couple of years the bunker face on the 11th Fairway bunker deteriorated badly. 
Due to high coastal winds our bunker faces do take a hammering during the year. 


We started off by filling in soil to reface the bunker and help with the problem of re-planting the bunker face.




Next we capped it with a compost loam mix to make sure we give the grass something to grow in. Grass was replanted on the bunker face.



We are very happy with the finished product.









I Love Summer

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 17:32:00 +0000

For obvious reasons!!



Growth vs Speed on our Paspalum Greens

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 16:56:00 +0000

There are a couple of factors that plays part in the fact that we sometimes have complaints from members that our greens are running a bit slow. The greens are cut in the morning before play starts for the day at about 06:30. When the afternoon field starts teeing-off at about 11:30 there has been 5 hours of growth on the greens. With paspalum being a fast growing grass, you can imagine it's a lot of growth. The photo below is the grass that was taken off all 18 holes after doing a second cut at about 10:00, 4 hours after the first cut.



This might not look like a lot of grass but keep in mind that its only 4 hours after the first cut. So looking at this you can understand that when you playing your last couple of holes in the afternoon the greens have slowed down considerably.
Things that we do to keep the growth to a minimum.

  • We try not to use fast release fertilizer that will cause excessive growth on the paspalum. 
  • We try to keep the Nitrogen levels lower not to promote excessive growth. Keeping in mind that with our weather conditions right next to the ocean with very humid conditions we do suffer from dollar spot. Turfgrasses grown under low nitrogen fertility exhibit more dollar spot than grasses maintained at optimum fertility. Bit of a balancing act...
  • We do use Primo during certain times of the year. Primo is a PGR (plant growth regulator). Again keeping in mind the fact that our greens are built on 100% sand. We do suffer from heat stress from time to time. When recovering from heat stress and dollar spot scars its best not to be suppressing growth on the greens.  
Hopefully this gives you some insight on Growth vs Speed on our Paspalum Greens.

Heavy Rain

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 08:27:00 +0000

Last night we had the heavens open. We had 100mm (4 inches) + rain. My rain-gauge only holds a 100mm so we could have had more. It surly looks like it if you go out on the course.

We had basically all our bunkers wash out. The storm water that comes down from Durban North brought a lot of rubbish and debris onto the course.
We are busy clearing all the fairways of all the rubbish and making sure you only have your golf ball on the fairways. Bunker faces will be repaired and also the water will be pumped out.
What happens with the bunkers when we have heavy rains like this and the bunkers do wash out, is we get all the stones from below washing up and staying behind in the bunkers. Please bare with us during this period of getting everything back to where it needs to be.
















 

Weeds on Fairways.

Sat, 12 Nov 2011 04:29:00 +0000

You would have noticed the weed on the fairway during the last couple of weeks. We are in the process of spraying for this weed on all the fairways. You can see in the photo below where we have sprayed and where the weed is still growing.
After spraying the weed it dies off and goes brown. The common Bermuda that we have growing on the fairways will cover these brown spots in a couple of weeks.



It never rains but it pours!!

Sat, 22 Oct 2011 05:46:00 +0000

Its been one of those mornings.They say trouble always hits in 3's. First off we had a fire in the bush next to the 12th green which we had to put out.



Secondly, the spline drive broke off on one of the reels on one of the greens mowers. The spline drive transfers the drive through the coupling from the reel motor to the reel.


Thirdly our second greens mower had a hydraulic leak on the 15th green. Luckily my operator spotted it as he dropped the reels and moved off the green. So damage is minimal. 


As we all know these type of things happen on all golf courses from time to time, its just very frustrating when it all happens on the same day. 


Thanks to all the members for understanding.

Wetting Agents

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 04:50:00 +0000

Summer is here and the heat is coming !!! Wetting agents are surfactants.They act by modifying the surface tension between water and another surface, like leaf blades or soil particles.

A wetting agent is a product used in golf course management to increases the ability of water to penetrate soils. It decreases the surface tension of soil particles making it easier for water to infiltrate and spread through the soil profile. It makes water more efficient.

We use wetting agents on both courses to improve the effectiveness of nightly irrigation. In periods of stress, the improved water effectiveness helps us combat dry spots when we hand water. It also helps roots get the water they need to keep the grass plant alive.

We have started treating greens with wetting agent over the last few weeks in preparation for the summer heat.



Spring has sprung Update

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 04:29:00 +0000

You will notice that we started seeding some of the tees. These are the tees that took some strain during the winter months. Mostly its the par 3's but also some of the par 4's like 5,13,14. These tees take strain due to the fact that the hole is very narrow and players generally don't like taking driver on these holes but rather takes an iron from the tee to make sure they keep the ball in play. Due to this these tees do get damaged quite a lot.




After the seeding we close the area off with some biddim and then water the seeded area 3 times a day to promote germination.

You will also notice some sod being used from the back of the 6th green. These sods are being used to sod on some other greens that needs a bit of TLC. Also we are harvesting cups from the back of the 6th to fix small problem areas like on the 5th and the 8th.

These areas gets filled with sand after every days work. 



We have a couple of fairways that is still recovering from the bad drought we had last year. These areas have now hollowtined and top dressed with compost to make sure we get some water retention in these sandy fairways of ours. Fertilizer has also been applied to promote recovery and get the turf back to a healthy state.



Some more updates will follow.




Spring has sprung update.

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 06:59:00 +0000

This week we have started hollowtining the tees, after which we fertilize and compost the tees.
After hollowtining we cut behind with a tees mower to mulch up the cores. Following that with a fertilizer application and then compost.

12th Tee after hollowtining and cutting.

12th Tee after Fertilizer application and awaiting compost.

12th Tee after composting.


All the greens have been double verticut and the cutting height on the greens was dropped on Tuesday. All greens have been fertilized during the past couple of days. We will continue with a foliar feed program during summer to get the greens as healthy as possible to handle the summer stress that is to come. The reason for us verticutting is to take out some of the thatch buildup below the surface and also thin the grass out a bit to give us a better ball roll.


The stressed areas that you see in the photos below is not heat stress from the past couple of hot days. It is stressed areas from winter. These are the areas we normally struggle with in summer but in winter we don't irrigate as frequently as in summer to prevent moss build up and so forth. Due to this fact these areas do stress during winter but it is not as noticeable as it is in summer due to the fact that the grass is dormant. So when spring comes and the grass comes alive and starts growing and shows some color again these areas are very noticeable as you can see in the photo below.


We just continue watering and feeding the grass and within a couple of days you can already see a big improvement in the quality of the turf.


We have also started sodding areas effected by traffic on the course. 



We take sod from the side of  a fairway. In this case 12/17. That area we will then fill with sand and compost and fertilize to get the grass back asap.




We will also be fixing and planting sod on some fairways over the next couple of weeks. Please be mindful of areas with new sod. These areas will be marked. 






Some interesting rainfall facts.

Mon, 12 Sep 2011 15:23:00 +0000

We all know that we have had a very wet couple of winter months. But how wet is very wet. I got some interesting percentages that I thought I would share with you.

The rainfall info that I keep for the course is on the blog on the rainfall page, these are just some interesting percentages taken from that info.

Avg rainfall in Durban.
May 59mm
Jun 36mm
Jul 26mm
Aug 39mm

Our actual rainfall for these months in 2011.
May 69mm - 16.95% more than the ave.
Jun 120mm - 233.54% more than the ave.
Jul 172mm - 561.54% more than the ave.
Aug 95mm - 143.59% more than the ave.

Total rainfall for this period.
Ave - 160mm
Actual - 456mm
185% more rain than the ave.

Total rainfall for the year 2011 Jan - Aug.
Ave - 610mm
Actual - 1041mm
70.66% more than the ave.

Now I have said this before and I will say it again. I am not for one second complaining about the wonderful rain we've been having. I would rather have the rain than have no rain like we had in 2010. Lets have a look at the same info for 2010.

Our actual rainfall for these months in 2010.
May 36mm - 38.98% less than the ave.
Jun 13mm - 63.89% less than the ave.
Jul 1mm - 96.15% less than the ave.
Aug 1mm - 97.44% less than the ave.

So like I said, I would rather have the "more than ave" than the "less than ave".

Below is a breakdown of the rainfall info for the years 2010,2011 and Ave's in a chart form.