CSGC Links News November 2015

The County Sligo Golf Club

Issue 12 – November 2015

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GRASS PLANT Preparing for the Cold ANATOMY OF A PITCHMARK Protect Our Greens BUNKERS Constructing the Perfect Bunker

The County Sligo Golf Club

Issue 12 – November 2015

‘It’s essential that all players are diligent in their repair of pitchmarks on greens.’

As well as looking unsightly, from a golfing point of view, pitchmarks can affect ball roll and cause a player’s putt to bobble and deviate offline. Studies have shown that on average, a golfer will make 8 pitchmarks during a round of golf. If 130 rounds are played per day, that’s over 1,000 pitchmarks per week; no surprise then that it can be difficult to hole a putt!

It’s essential that all players are diligent in their repair of pitchmarks on greens. A correctly repaired pitchmark will recover in 24 hours. An unrepaired pitchmark left unattended for two hours will take up to two months to recover.

Unrepaired pitchmarks also foster disease and infections in the green as any gaps left in the turf will be filled by Annual Meadow Grass. This is a much weaker grass type than the favoured fescues and bents we encourage and is much more prone to disease attacks.

Next time you’re out on the Links or any course for that matter try and do your bit to help us deliver smooth, firm and true greens this winter.

Thank You - Mark Millar (Course Manager) 2

The County Sligo Golf Club

Issue 12 – November 2015

ANATOMY OF A PITCH MARK There are basically four different types of pitch marks.

Type I pitch mark - The Bruise. This type of ball mark is most common on firm greens. It is hard to find but easy to repair.

Type II pitch mark - The Dent. This type of ball mark is found on relatively firm greens, after a "soft" landing golf shot. This type is easier to find and relatively easy to repair.

Type III pitch mark - The Pit. This is one of the easiest ball marks to find and one of the slowest to heal due to its size. This ball mark type suggests that a green is soft.

Type IV pitch mark - The Skid Mark. This is perhaps the worst type to see on a green. It is the largest and most difficult to repair and thus the ball mark of most concern.

A non-repaired ball mark. Note the wilted grass.

Regardless of the ball mark type, a non-repaired pitch mark is bad for the grass and takes up to two months to recover.

Always repair your ball marks, regardless of their type.

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The County Sligo Golf Club

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Issue 12 – November 2015

The County Sligo Golf Club

Issue 12 – November 2015

Course Managers Report – Mark Millar Winter seems to be creeping in at this stage. Work has been steady on the Links with a few big jobs like the new 3rd approach reshaping and turfing. The shorter daylight hours and on going revitalisation work leave little time to get other work done on the course. The mild weather means grass is still growing strongly leading to more man hours cutting and maintaining than is usual at this time of year.

Greens were verdi-drained last week which will help with root development, water movement and will allow air into the soil. Very much like ourselves they need air and water. This will leave the greens very soft over the next 2-3 weeks because of the movement in the soil.

“This will lead to more pitch marks and I would encourage golfers to repair their own

pitch marks and at least one other. “ Weather permitting we will top-dress greens this week which will help smoothness. The putting surfaces have had no fertiliser in the past five weeks as growth is still very strong although they did get a little seaweed and iron to help maintain colour. They were sprayed recently with a fungicide for protection against disease which thrives in mild weather. This has been the first fungicide application this year. Greens at present are being cut at 5.5mm, the extra grass cover will help to protect them from damage over the winter. When weather is suitable granular fertiliser will be applied to keep the greens as strong as possible leading into the long dark winter.

The paths on the 13th and 17th holes have now been turfed and will start to take root over the next few weeks. The 13th path has been widened to spread the ‘traffic’ leading to less wear. The 18th path has been surfaced with rubber mats that will allow grass to grow up through them protecting the crown of the plant. Stones as also been removed from the path and were replaced with root zone.

Rough management work as been going ahead with big areas mowed to 40mm in height. A hired-in spring tine harrow (picture) was used to rip out grass and moss to thin the areas out even more. This technique worked really well and is one that I’ll continue over the next 3 to 4 years. It will be used on a 6 meter band around every hole.

Some traffic management has been introduced due to the wet weather. The roped off areas will direct foot and buggy traffic away from parts of the course that would be prone to a lot of wear over the winter.

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The County Sligo Golf Club

Issue 12 – November 2015

Revitalisation

It’s been a busy month with the new course improvements. The approach to the new 3rd green is now finished with a new bunker also constructed. The second phase of this will be done once I am happy that the new green will be playable. Work on the new fairway bunker on the 2nd hole is near completion.

WINTER GOLF UPDATE Mats will in use on the Championship and Bomore courses (Fairways and Par 3 Tees) from November 30th to December 24th 2015 and from January 4th 2016 to early March.

The back ridge on the 2nd green was levelled out to make the green a little bigger. This work was carried out without a digger by the links team.

Course Architect, Pat Ruddy was supervising work on the 6th and 7th holes. He is happy with the shaping and has signed off on the bunkers.

They are now ready for turfing and will only have a small revet with a flash face of sand.

The new bunker on the 7th fairway is in the same state. I will be working on these bunkers over the next 3 weeks.

My staff are now on a 3 day week so I will be limited in what I can achieve. The next phase will include bunkers on the 11th and 12th fairways which will hopefully be completed before the end of the year. th

The new extension to the 7 green is well established and we got a good seed strike which will hold everything in place over the winter months. Come spring we’ll be working on this area to get it ready for play.

The new 10th green extension will need more work work to match the new and the old together. This is a small turfing job and will take no more than half a day. The new 8th tee is now finished and should be ready for play in early spring.

It’s important to get this work done now to have it in play for the West of Ireland.

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The Competitions Committee have introduced a local rule in accordance with the rules of golf to cover the situation when bunkers are flooded in Bomore.

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If a player’s ball lies in a flooded bunker or if that bunker interferes with the players stance and the player wishes to take relief, he/she must take relief outside the bunker without penalty, in accordance with rule 25-1b(i).

However, when taking relief the ball must be dropped within one club length behind the bunker, keeping the bunker between the ball and the flag and at least one metre in from either end of the bunker.

The penalty for breach of rule is two strokes.

Out of Bounds Members please note that the sixth fairway is out of bounds when playing the fifth hole on Bomore.

The County Sligo Golf Club

Course Manager Mark and his team of greenkeepers have been busy all year skillfully ‘building bunkers’ as part of the revitalisation of the Championship course. To most of us a bunker is an object of hate, a deep hole in the ground filled with sand that’s designed to cause carnage and frustration for golfers.

But maybe we should take a step back and consider the planning and work that goes into constructing these aesthetically pleasing revetted bunkers. Let’s try to appreciate the quality of the workmanship of the green’s staff, the visual enhancement of our golf course…at least until it once again takes us five shots to get out of one them!

Issue 12 – November 2015

The turf is then removed and stored for re-use.

The topsoil can then be stripped off and stockpiled.

Bunker complexes include the bunker site and adjacent mounds and hollows. The shaping is carried out using an excavator with a swivel bucket.

When the final shaping is complete the turf sods are placed around the bunkers edge. We start by laying the foundation layer around the base of the bunker. The sods are laid one on

How to construct a revetted bunker

Mark describes what’s involved in the construction of a revetted bunker.

The location and elevations are clearly marked using stakes.

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The County Sligo Golf Club top of the other (offset like blockwork) until the desired height is reached.

As a general guide, greenside bunkers should be at an angle of 135°. To achieve this each slab is laid 40mm further back than its predecessor. For fairway bunkers a slightly more forgivable face angle of 145° is desirable (slabs laid 60mm behind each other). If the face is too steep it is likely to collapse.

The turf is laid around the extremity of the bunker shape gradually getting lower until the desired back lip height is reached, this should be low enough so golfers can step in and out of the bunker easily.

If drainage is likely to be a problem, a soak hole is dug in the lowest part of bunker. The bunker floor is then cleaned out and graded before compaction (manually or by machine).

The stockpiled topsoil is then re-distributed around the bunker to a level consistent with the existing course area. Turf sods are then laid up to the revetted edge.

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Issue 12 – November 2015 On completion sand is placed in the bunker to a finished depth of approx 100mm. Layers no more than 50mm deep are raked into place and compacted. The sand at the sides is usually left a little deeper to prevent the ball getting trapped at a right angle between the revetted face and sand.

The construction detail and photo below should make the above a little clearer!

The County Sligo Golf Club

Issue 12 – November 2015

Preparing for the cold…

So life for ourselves and the grass plant is feeling very different in just a few days as we experience the first cold spell of the winter.

Let’s have a look at the effects of a sudden drop in temperature from the grass plants perspective. Up to now it has been growing super-fast for the time of year at near summer mowing rates. This means that grass has a high nitrogen content in the leaf, a high water content and the leaf epidermis is likely to be thin, due to a fast growth rate. In other words it’s totally unprepared for extreme cold, a bit like ourselves!

In my experience a slightly higher cutting height benefits the plant during periods of cold weather. I’d possibly give the greens a light rolling to maintain some speed, but only if conditions permit.

So the plan is to let the plant go through this period as protected as possible and it’ll soon get the message that the days of growth are finished for another year…

Thankfully we’ve had very few disease issues this year and in fact only applied fungicide on one occasion this season. The very mild autumn was a potentially dangerous time. I expect with this severe transition into cold weather that any disease activity will now come to a pronounced halt as will re-growth in scarred areas.

It certainly doesn’t mean that the Microdochium nivale will be ‘killed’ by exposure to frost, but for sure one of the key drivers of disease, that of air temperature, will be exiting ‘stage west’ for the time-being.

With the loss of temperature and grass growth, we will also see a drop-off in uptake efficacy of fungicide because the grass plant will effectively ‘shut down’ for the foreseeable future.

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The County Sligo Golf Club

Issue 12 – November 2015

Impressive Progress at Ballybunion

We’re not the only ones making changes to our golf course. Ivan Morris outlines the ‘magnitude and spectacular logistics’ of the revitalisation currently underway at Ballybunion Golf Club.

Critics say the powers that be at Ballybunion Golf Club must be stone mad to dig up and resurface all of their 18 greens. But anyone visiting the Old Course today could only be impressed by the progress, magnitude and spectacular logistics of an operation that began on October 19th last and which will finish in mid-February and be fully back in play by the end of April.

A willing staff of 45 with the largest array of earth moving equipment ever seen on a golf course in these here parts is working every daylight hour under the personal direction of Graeme Webster (Course Architect), John Bambury (Course Manager) and golf course builder, Anthony Bennett of Atlantic Golf Construction.

As Club Chairman, Pat Hartnett, explains: "We want to restore fescue so the links will play as it

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was intended from its earliest days; fast and loose." Apart from a completely new 7th green complex the changes are almost entirely cosmetic. New dunes festooned with marram have been incorporated in well thought-out places to hide eye-sores and create more attractive playing corridors.

The course, the routing, the exam paper will all be the same but the way the course will look will be far more pleasing to the eye.

The biggest changes come at the 7th where the new green will be huge, 800 square metres makes it by far the biggest on the golf course. The most important thing, which applies to all of the re-laid greens, is the quality of the grass sods totally free of 'alien invaders' that were specially cultivated in a bespoke nursery beside the club's practice area.

The County Sligo Golf Club

Issue 12 – November 2015

One of the aims of turf management is to keep play on the main greens for as near to 12 months of the year as possible. Greenkeepers have to take winter weather into account, so please follow these steps to help them as temperatures plunge. Ø Some areas may be cordoned off for repair after inclement weather (marked Ground Under Repair), please respect these areas. Ø Please replace divots and repair pitchmarks. Ø Watch the Links Notice Board for information on what’s happening on the course.

Ø Every effort is made by the Greenkeepers to keep greens closures to an absolute minimum, however sometimes closures are unavoidable.

Allowing play on overly wet or frozen greens early in the winter damages turf and should be avoided. Ø Knocking off excess dirt from shoes before walking on greens is helpful.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR CO-OPERATION, YOUR ASSISTANCE WILL GREATLY HELP THE GREENKEEPING TEAM PREPARE A FIRST CLASS COURSE FOR YOU TO ENJOY.

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The County Sligo Golf Club

Issue 12 – November 2015

1. Mr ‘I’m not always this bad’ One poor shot, and he’s off. “I don’t know where that came from; that’s not my shot at all; I’m not normally this bad – I played really well a couple of days ago…”

Yes we know from the handicap on your card you’re not always this bad, unless it’s fabricated, hopelessly out of date or artificially maintained to make your feel better about yourself.

2. The coin or tee jangler Whether on the tee or as you’re steadying yourself over a crucial four-footer, there he is, jangling away, usually absent-mindedly, but just occasionally on the gamesmanship trail.

Either way, it’s just as annoying, and hard to shut out once it’s got under your skin.

3. The incessant talker We like a bit of banter on the course, but when it’s non-stop even when you’re trying to think or preparing to hit, it all gets a bit tiresome.

Again, like the coin jangler, once the incessant talker has got under your skin, it can derail your whole round.

Jack: "I don't want to talk today, Lee." Lee: "That's alright, Jack. You don't have to talk; you just have to listen!"

4. Mr Angry Playing with someone who erupts at the first sign of a poor shot or bad break guarantees a very long round in which you’re constantly on edge, and always on a self-preserving look-out for low-flying clubs.

Usually stems from them not being as good as they think they are.

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The 9 Most Annoying Golf Partners We’ve all come across them at some stage….

The County Sligo Golf Club

Issue 12 – November 2015

5. The tortoise

8. Mr ‘been there, done that’

We live in tortuous slow play times, but if you’re the one constantly trying to gee people along, it tends to be your game that suffers rather than theirs as you’re forever anxiously looking over your shoulder to see how badly the course is stacking up behind you.

He’s always a marshal at The Irish Open; he’s shaken hands and chatted to Rory, Ernie and everyone.

6. The hare As annoying as the tortoise is, the hare can be just as bad.

“Should be round in well under three hours today,” is his opening gambit, after which he’ll be off like a hare out of the traps the moment your ball has come off the clubface, more concerned about catching and getting through the group ahead than actually playing golf.

7. Mr ‘doom and gloom’ “I hate the game – can’t break 100 at the moment and I’m thinking about selling the clubs and giving up my membership,” says Mr ‘doom and gloom’ as he reaches out to shake your hand on the 1st tee.

“Don’t know why I keep putting myself through it.” Neither do we, Mr D&G, neither do we…

He’s also played at St Andrews, Pebble Beach and everywhere; he’s been invited to Augusta National by someone he once met.

And you’ve had enough before you even get to the 2nd tee… only 17 more holes to go. Aarrgghh!

19. The Rules expert “I think I overheard you saying to Michael to keep his chin up and keep trying after that last tee shot” says the Rules expert, the last of our most annoying golf partners.

“I believe that constitutes advice and therefore breaches Rule 8-1.” Cue four hours of fun where you’re afraid to open your mouth and feel compelled to tread on eggshells anywhere near your ball.

Fairway Mats Due to the inclement climate we have during the winter months we play from a mat for all shots off the fairway between tee and green. A very worthy idea which helps to keep our courses in such great condition all year round. With temperatures providing little growth during the winter months these small bits of Astroturf help protect the turf from divot damage which would otherwise take until the summer to repair.

There’s nothing quite like playing an iron shot from one of those unmistakable links fairways; the sensation and result can be so rewarding. However, I will certainly admit that not all of us will be unhappy about playing off mats, the forgiving nature of the mat when we maybe don’t quite catch the ball perfectly. This problem usually occurs when the club strikes the ground before the ball. On a mat you can usually get away with this, but on a tightly mown links fairway…not so much!

Note: At St Andrews mats are used between the months of November and March.

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The County Sligo Golf Club

Issue 12 – November 2015

New Fairway Bunker on the 7th Hole

Editor: Vincent McGee The County Sligo Golf Club 2015 Š

The views expressed in contributed articles are not necessarily the views of the editor of this publication or Co Sligo Golf Club. Editorial content and photographs cannot be reproduced without prior permission from the editor.