CSGC Links News February 2015

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The County Sligo Golf Club

February 2015

THE truth about

GreenkeepING

JANUARY Links Meeting Links News Issue No 2 February 2015

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February 2015

Links meeting The first meeting of the Links Committee took place on Wednesday, January 28th. Chairman, Serryth Heavey opened the meeting by welcoming Mark Millar (left) as Head Greenkeeper and wished him every success in his new role.

Serryth also welcomed new committee members; Mary Durcan, Paraic Hanley and Vincent McGee.

Greenkeeper’s report Links Committee Chairman: Serryth Heavey Aidan Doyle Carmel Hatt Paraic Hanley Mary Durcan Vincent McGee Oliver McDonagh Terry Brady Jim Flood David O’Donovan Mark Millar

Work has been slow in January due to the weather conditions and my settling in period. Persistent rain has caused flooding on the Bomore course but as the water table has dropped the water is draining slowly.

The greenkeeping crew are on a three day week which slows progress as there is a lot of tidying up to do on the new course improvements on the Championship Course.

Some of the greens have suffered with disease *(Fusarium) over the Christmas period which has now been chemically treated.

This will leave them a little bare and bumpy in places and recovery time may be slow due to current low soil

temperatures.

The greens are also suffering a bit due to the continuing eradication of rye grass, they are in need of top dressing and I’ll also be assessing the the nutrient status of the turf. Over the next few months we’ll be giving them a light top dressing to get them to ‘fill in’ and make them run smoother.

Machine brushing will also start in the next few weeks, this will give a cleaner cut to the unsightly grasses. *Fusarium Patch (see image left) is a fungal disease that attacks areas of fine turf when local conditions are conducive for the organism to become active. It can be controlled by use of proprietary fungicides.

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February 2015

January Work carried out in January General: All Divot boxes have been painted.

New bunker has been built on the right hand side of the 5th fairway.

A new drain has been installed at start of 5th fairway.

The extensions to the 1st and 2nd greens have been rolled and top dressed.

New tee box on the 1st has been turfed and finished.

The new tee box on the 5th and the path leading to it have been turfed.

Drain on the right of the 5th fairway has been filled in.

• • • • • • •

Greens: • • •

All greens have been sprayed with seaweed and iron.

Pins are placed at the front of the greens to reduce pitch marks.

Winter hole cups have been cut for use in frost.

Fairways: •

Tees: •

• • •

Tee markers were moved forward to save main tees for the start of the season.

Tee posts were straightened and secured.

Ongoing divotting of tees.

All tees have been solid tined with 10mm tines.

Sprayed with Ammonia of Sulphate +iron and Seaweed.

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February 2015

february Work planned for February General: • • • • • • • • • • •

Continue tidy up of course improvements areas.

Build new bunker on the left hand side of the 5th green.

Lay turf on filled drain on the right hand side of the 5th fairway.

Finish laying turf around the new 3rd green.

Complete work on the new mound on the left side of the 1st fairway.

Start patching-­‐out wear areas on paths and high traffic areas.

Replace or repair broken benches.

Install new irrigation around 2nd and 5th greens.

Purchase new pins and flags for both courses for the new playing season.

Commence rough management program.

Review course signage.

Greens: • • • •

Formulate plan on improvement of playing surface.

Verdi Drain all greens with 12mm tines.

Top dress greens with approx 20 tons of sand.

Continue recovery program on disease and treatment patches.

Tees: • •

Top Dress all tees.

Spray with iron and seaweed.

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February 2015

Issues Raised at links meeting Ladies Club – Mary Durcan There is a potential health and safety issue in front of the 18th tee in the area known as Christy’s Farm. Some golfers are having difficulty accessing and leaving this area, it was suggested that steps or a railing would help the situation.

The Committee acknowledged the problem and asked the Head Greenkeeper to assess the area and report back.

Will the course be re-­‐measured and indexes changed after all upgrade works are complete?

Yes. Who authorized the removal of turf from the pitching area at the front of the clubhouse?

A proposal was made by the Revitalisation Committee in the first instance which was then sanctioned by the Management Committee. More turf may be removed if required. The area will be re-­‐seeded in March 2015 and will re-­‐open in March 2016.

Men’s Club – Vincent McGee No marker posts present on the Men’s tees on the 14th hole.

Head Greenkeeper will check this out. As new course signage is being considered for the new playing season, this may not be rectified until then.

It was proposed that the pitching green in front of the clubhouse be roped off while out of play.

Agreed by the committee, Head Greenkeeper Mark will carry this out.

Not enough ball retrievers around the drains on both courses.

New ball retrievers to be purchased and broken ones repaired.

Drains in need of cleaning due to difficulty in finding golf balls that land in them.

Mark pointed out that the amount of water flowing in the drains may delay this task.

Who is responsible for placing markers on tee boxes?

The Head Greenkeeper.

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February 2015

greenkeeping

…a very demanding job Greenkeeping, since the advent of golf, is considered by many who play the game to be the ideal occupation for those who favour an outdoor job where the stresses and strains of society in general can be left at the door of the workplace.

After all, what could be better than working in a tranquil environment, experiencing the climatic vagaries of the seasons, experiencing the distinctive smell of cut grass, witnessing the natural progression of flora through the growing season, being in a position to view the fruits of your labour as you proceed through the day, and all of this without the constant interference of dogmatic supervision. What better place to be than on a high tee at seven in the morning on a cloudless summers day overlooking a

scenic parkland vista or listening to the sound of the waves on a links. Surely this beats winding your way through snarling traffic to spend a day in an office worrying whether your investments will come good or whether your order book will grow. Whilst all of this is true, it is good to remember the old adage “All that glistens is not gold”.

Greenkeeping has evolved significantly from the inception of golf, at which time the profession merely concentrated on keeping grass low enough to allow golfers to find their golf balls. There was attention given to greens where sand was spread in an effort to promote a surface where putts would roll as smoothly as possible, but, all-­‐in-­‐all, attention to detail was not nearly as important as it is today.

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Whereas it was a pleasant job at that time, it was also considered to be a fairly unimportant one in that it catered for a very small privileged minority who played a very strange game, it paid wages that were lower than most jobs other than the most basic of labouring jobs of that time. How different is the task of greenkeeping nowadays, it has evolved into a professiom where considerable expertise is required.

For the Head Greenkeeper and those in the higher echelons of the profession, it is a very demanding job where knowledge of growth cycles, the growing characteristics and nutrient requirements of different grasses, the life cycles of various pests, the impact of cutting heights on sward performance, climatic influences on both performance of swards and diseases, control methods, both holistic and chemical, of known pests and diseases, aeration requirements, the list seems endless but such knowledge is a prerequisite for doing the job properly.

Added to all of this, the he must manage a work force

February 2015

and a very significant budget. He must also advise the committee on developing a template for course maintenance that best fits a specific site.

‘Nothing more than gardening and grass cutting’ Crucially, he must possess political skills that will enable him to convince a course committee that both his template for the course and his budget requirements are well founded. A fairly daunting array of skills and knowledge is required and one might ask is there any position in the world of business where any one individual is required to have such a vast array of both knowledge and skills.

The demands for the greenkeeping team are not as extensive, but they still include attention to detail, knowledge of the characteristics of quite a number of machines and the ability to identify and

remedy faults that become evident during operation.

They must be capable of identifying various diseases and they must develop a variety of skills that fit different operations.

Yet, despite all of this, the greenkeepers position is still, in many quarters, considered to be nothing more than gardening and grass cutting. Respect for the position, in most cases, is non-­‐existent. Why should this be the case?

Many golfers have a small garden at home and spend a lot of leisure time tending to this garden. They see greenkeeping as an extension of this, nothing complicated at all.

However, they fail to take account of the fact that they are not cutting their grass outside of its comfort envelope and those that do so very quickly end up with a lawn dominated by moss and weeds that would not be tolerated on a golf course.

They fail to note that they do not have to take account of two hundred people per day walking over their lawn, taking the odd swipe with a sharp 7

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implement as they pass and creating major problems of wear and tear due either to compaction, sward damage by golf clubs or simply foot-­‐fall pressure. They see grass as grass and make little attempt at having a homogenous sward; they have little knowledge of the impact of cutting and rolling on a daily basis; of the need to accurately predict nutrient and water requirements; of the need for that dreaded term, ‘consistency’; of the need to keep pests and diseases at bay.

If they did consider the basic requirements for sound golf course maintenance, they would quickly understand that this is a demanding job that requires years of experience and education if the job is to be done properly.

Finally, whilst most golfers enjoy rigid start times in their own profession, golf course staff are expected to be absolutely flexible with regard to start and finishing times.

Acceptance of a three-­‐day week in the non-­‐ growing season is now commonplace as is working weekend overtime. If all of this were not enough, performance is critically monitored by upwards of two hundred golfers on a daily basis.

‘A job that requires years of experience and education’

February 2015

One wonders how such golfers would fare if their own performance at work were monitored to the same extent. Therefore, it is clear from the above that greenkeeping is a job that requires extensive knowledge of agronomy, that these requirements are not common knowledge and consequently not recognised or appreciated by golfers in general.

All Greenkeepers are aware of the re-­‐ occuring critical remarks, “there is not enough sand in those bunkers and they are inconsistent”. The real problem is normally down to an average golfer laying open the blade of a lob or sand wedge when playing a bunker shot thereby resulting in the blade bouncing off the sand into the middle of the golf ball which then proceeds at speed either into the face of the bunker or heavy rough forty yards over the green!

With regard to consistency of sand in a bunker, many factors influence this, such as the aspect of the bunker, is it facing the sun or not. Does the irrigation system cover the bunker, we all know that wet sand is more firm than dry sand and, finally, the proximity of the sand surface to the water table.

The keen observer will note that professionals will vigorously wriggle their feet into the sand prior to playing a bunker shot. This is not to build a stance, it is testing both the firmness and depth of the sand and this influences how he plays the shot.

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Probably the most popular criticism is “those greens are inconsistent”…of course they are. Given that the slope on every green is different and that slope influences speed, how can they be consistent with regard to speed. Given that greens with a southerly aspect will grow stronger than those with a northerly aspect, consistency during periods of growth is well nigh impossible.

They fail to understand that taking account of such details ranks equal in importance to correctly reading the line of a putt and the onus is on them to do so.

The strange thing is that top class amateurs and professionals rarely complain to the same extent. However,

the greenkeeper must have sufficient sang-­‐froid to take such remarks on the chin and advise that he will deal with the problem the very next day. To conclude, the job of the greenkeeper can be a very rewarding job in terms of job satisfaction, but it is a job with very specific demands that are rarely recognised in full by the sport it serves.

The Head Greenkeeper and his staff must possess both knowledge and skills that are seldom acknowledged by the golfing public, he must be aware of the politics of the committee system and react accordingly and he must have the patience of a saint when when dealing with complaints!

The author of this article is Declan Branigan who has been a practising Agronomist for 40 years and has held the position both of Captain and Greens Convenor at his home Club. As an acting Superintendent, he has had to report to Greens Committees for the past 25 years.

County Sligo Golf Club 2015 © 9