CSGC Links News October 2015

The County Sligo Golf Club

Issue 11 – October 2015

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WINTER GOLF Wind, rain & temporary greens STRI COURSE VISIT Conor Nolan Course Consultant PROTECTING WINTER GREENS The how & why TURFKEEPER Course Maintenance System

The County Sligo Golf Club

Issue 11 – October 2015

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Wind, rain, temporary greens – how lucky are we?

A recent overseas visitor asked, “Can we play golf in Ireland all year round?” Yes we can, was of course the answer, especially those of us lucky enough to play on links courses.

I explained how the weather rarely gets cold enough that our course would be closed for a prolonged period of time and that It hardly ever snows in Ireland. It’s more wind and rain that you would be concerned with than icy temperatures.

Warming to my subject, like all Irish weather experts, I told him that along the Atlantic Coast during the months of November to April, anything can happen weather wise. Indeed the same could be said of the summer months too, but I kept that to myself!

The conversation got me thinking, do we really

appreciate our good fortune being able to play golf all year round? Do we appreciate the added value of our membership fee?

On the downside we have to deal with some harsh weather, occasional temporary greens and the couple of months playing off fairway mats but that’s part and parcel of winter golf and readily accepted by most golfers.

We’re perhaps lucky that successive Course Managers have always been committed to having the full course in play whenever possible during the winter months.

Winter golf has always been less competitive, a time to enjoy a friendly game with friends. It’s about the ‘feel good’ factor we experience on reaching the 19th on a cold, blustery winter’s day.

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The County Sligo Golf Club

Issue 11 – October 2015

WINTER PLAY ON GOLF GREENS The aim of our Course Manager is to keep play on the main greens for twelve months of the year if possible. However, this ideal has to be matched with the prevailing weather and the condition of the greens.

frequent to avoid regular concentration of foot traffic to the same spot, use being made of the outer regions of the greens as far as possible, although keeping towards the front in very wet spells.

An indication of the type of damage arising from play under adverse conditions is given below and whilst appreciating that golfers expect winter play, these requirements must be kept in perspective. Most competitive golf and important fixtures take place outside the winter period so a little inconvenience caused by playing to temporary greens of a satisfactory standard should be acceptable to all golfers when necessary.

Frosty Conditions

The putting surfaces of the main greens are therfore better preserved for when they are required and expected to be at their best.

Wet Conditions In persistently wet conditions, the soil around the pin is likely to become severely compacted.

Fine particles of silt and clay can migrate to the surface, resulting in soil-stained patches round pin positions and other well trafficked routes. All of these effects weaken the turf and impede surface drainage.

In these conditions, hole changes should be

Damage caused by play during frosty weather falls into two main categories.

1. When frozen, plant tissues are easily bruised by players feet. Following a thaw, it is often possible to see brown footmarks for several weeks, particularly around hole sites. The greater the weight of play in hard frost, obviously the greater becomes the extent of this damage. Affected areas remain thin for long periods, altering the trueness of the putting surface, and are more susceptible to disease in spring.

2. Long-term damage is caused when play takes place after a sudden thaw. In these conditions the top layer of thatch and soil becomes soft, whilst the underlying soil remains frozen. Root damage occurs from the shearing action as players’ feet move the soft, unfrozen surface across the frozen sub-surface. This disrupts putting surfaces and creates weak areas that may not recover before the height of the competition season.

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The County Sligo Golf Club

Issue 11 – October 2015

Course Managers Report – Mark Millar October has been a good month weather wise, which makes the Greenkeepers life a little easier. The team continues to work hard which is reflected in the quality of work achieved. Coming into the winter months we will see our work patterns change with less mowing carried out and more of an emphasis on preparing the course for next season.

Although I could write a jobs-to-do list of course improvements on both of my arms, we’ll be limited on what can be achieved due to the focus on the Course Re-Development starting early this month and continuing throughout the winter.

I have some projects already underway including riveting the left hand fairway bunker on the 1st. The paths at 13 and 18 have been striped and levelled. These paths will be turfed with new turf from Emerald Lawns. The path at 13 was only 2 meters wide, widening it to 4.5 meters will spread the traffic and resulting in a nice grass path all year round. A lot of repair work on high-wear areas is ongoing.

This re-turfing needs to be done this side of December to allow the turf to knit in.

Revitalisation Program The 7th green extension has been completed and the new seed is coming along well. There has been a totally new irrigation system put in around the green, this was carried in-house by the greens staff.

The new 8th tee has also been turfed and should be ready for play come the West of Ireland next year.

The work on the 3rd hole, to lower the approach into the new green, has progressed well. This work will be completed in two phases, with 70% of the work being done on the first phase. This includes lowering the approach to the new green by removing part of the existing green and leaving the remaining portion in play for the Winter.

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The County Sligo Golf Club Phase two will see the rest of the old green removed and will only be carried out when the new green is open for play. The plan is to have the new green ready for the West of Ireland, maybe a few weeks earlier weather permitting.

While the digger is on site we’ll dig out the new bunker on the 2nd and the extension to the bunker on the 3rd.

Issue 11 – October 2015

Work Completed in October

Greens The greens are looking and playing fine for the time of year, although the first four holes for me would be the ones that are showing signs of stress due a lot of play. These greens highlight how difficult it is to grow Fescue grass on these greens due to the high traffic.

Conor Nolan from the STRI carried out a review of the course earlier this month. He was very pleased with the progress of the 6th,7th,8th & 9th greens that were sprayed with Rescue to kill off the undesirable grasses. He agreed that the program will be more difficult to implement on the first four holes due to the traffic levels.

After Conor’s visit the greens were overseeded again with 20g seed per meter square.

Due to the colder weather and little rainfall the seed ‘strike’ is not as good as earlier in the year. I’m pleased with the results of the overseeding program this season, hopefully we were successful in not impacting too much on golfers enjoyment of the course.

I’ve started work on a 5-year Links plan in conjunction with the STRI and the Links Committee. The aim of the plan is simply to improve the playing surfaces here at Co Sligo in a structured way. I’m also introducing an Online Course Maintenance software system, Turfkeeper (see page 6), which will monitor all activities and costs associated with maintaining both courses.

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Cut some areas of long rough to thin it out for next season. I’ll be working on a 6 meter band around most holes over the winter.

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Turfed around the new 3rd green surrounds to match in with the green and finished turfing the new 11th tee box.

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All banks mowed with Flymo mower.

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Bunker revetted on 1st fairway.

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Sprayed path ways with fertiliser to help recovery over the winter (50kg ha Sulphate ammonia).

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Bunker Maintenance (Strim, Flymo).

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Dropped mowing height o new 3rd and 5th greens to 7mm.

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All tees have been fertilised with 9.7.7 granular @ 25g meter square.

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Hedge at clubhouse as been topped.

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Fixed Irrigation leaks on 5th hole.

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Hollow cored Bomore greens, cores will be used on new 7th green extension.

Greens where top-dressed afterwards.

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All fairways been sprayed with fertiliser (40kg ha Sulphate ammonia & 10kg ha sulphate iron).

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The County Sligo Golf Club

Issue 11 – October 2015

Complete online turf management system User friendly and built by fellow greenkeepers, Turfkeeper offers a totally personalised environment to manage your business. Record day to day information on various parts of your operation such as staff management, stock usage, machinery maintenance; and use Turfkeeper's detailed reporting system to visualise and analyse costs and resource usage.

Extensive Data

Quick & Simple

Every detail you input into the system is recorded and stored forever giving you a wealth of detailed information. Need to justify the replacement of a machine due to it's high servicing cost? Turfkeeper has you covered. All reports are date searchable and can be filtered in a number of ways all in a matter of seconds!

Despite being an extensive planning and recording tool Turfkeeper remains quick, simple and easy to use. With input from greenkeepers all along the way, the system remains a valuable tool while not distracting you from the job. With an average time needed of 10-15 minutes per day, Turfkeeper makes sure not to get in the way.

Planning Tool Not just a recording tool, Turfkeeper is perfect for planning. The staff area is extremely flexible and the multiple daily, weekly and monthly calendar views makes planning staff workloads a breeze.

You can then use the system's export options to display planned work in excel or on paper to give to staff, or set up their own login and let them access the work straight from the system.

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The County Sligo Golf Club

Issue 11 – October 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 11 – October 2015

Sports Turf Research Institute

'STRI is the world's leading consultancy for design, research and management of natural and artificial sports surfaces. They offer effective solutions and independent advice to sports clubs and recreational facilities across the globe.

The Sports Turf Research Institute was established in 1929, in association with the UK Golf Unions and The R&A to provide research and advisory services for golf clubs on their golf greens and courses. By the 1950s, STRI had clearly established a reputation as the leading company in Europe for providing advice and research on new products and techniques for managing sports turf, not just for golf, but for all types of sports surfaces and amenity grass areas.

STRI has established a reputation as the world’s leading authority for golf clubs through eighty years of extensive research on the design, construction and maintenance of golf greens and courses.

To produce good quality golf courses and greens requires expertise combined with knowledge of the latest products and machinery and best practice techniques that should be used across the different areas of a golf course.

Working closely with the Course Manager, they provide practical and relevant advice on all aspects of course maintenance including; Surface hardness/softness - pests - weeds and diseases (tested at STRI’s labs) - soil and rootzone issues – grass species composition and poor grass cover - drainage and irrigation issues.

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The County Sligo Golf Club

Course visit October 15th STRI Agronomy Consultant Conor Nolan paid the second of two annual visits to the Club recently.

His role involves a comprehensive assessment of the course and greens, supported by a detailed report on his findings with recommendations on maintenance and improving quality.

The visit consists of a meeting with the Course Manager, The Director of Golf and a representative of the Links Committee followed by a walk of the course.

Items discussed with Conor included a rescheduling of the Autumn visit or perhaps an extra visit to allow him view the course during the peak golf season.

Course Manager Mark was also interested in a newly developed service that measures the quality and performance of greens by taking a comprehensive set of measurements across each green to analyse speed, trueness, smoothness, firmness, moisture levels and soil analysis and identify the correlation between these.

Issue 11 – October 2015

CONOR NOLAN joined the STRI's Advisory and Consultancy Team in June 2001 as Turfgrass Agronomist for Ireland and is one of the golf specialists amongst the team. He has offered advice to a wide array of surface types and operations amongst which are some of Irelands leading links destinations.

Recently Northern Europe has been added to his area of golf course coverage, a region he is keen to bring his knowledge/expertise to having enjoyed many formative years there prior to joining the STRI. In Europe he predominantly worked in the area of golf course design, construction, grow-ins and regular maintenance in a wide array of countries; Austria, Slovenia, Switzerland, Hungary and the United Arab Emirates.

He also took time away from project work to gain hands-on experience of old annual meadow grass/creeping bent greens management in the demanding New York metropolitan region.

He has a special interest in the aesthetic and ecological development of sites arising out of his time spent as on-site designer working under the strict environmental requirements of the Austrian and Swiss authorities.

This service would help us to fully understand the quality of our greens allowing us to track the progress and improvements in playing quality.

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The County Sligo Golf Club

Issue 11 – October 2015

GRAEME BEATT It was formally announced last week that Royal Portrush Golf Club, regarded as one of the finest links courses in the world, will host Northern Ireland's first Open Championship since 1951.

It seems like a good time to catch up with the very popular former County Sligo GC Course Manager, Graeme Beatt. Indeed Graeme still keeps in regular He is responsible for the golf course budget, but contact with his successor at Rosses Point, Mark Millar. They both worked together for a number of reports to the club secretary on a monthly basis and whenever necessary for anything out of the years at Castle Dargan. ordinary.

Situated on the rugged Atlantic coast, Portrush provides something of a greenkeeping challenge, Other members of Graeme’s ‘I really team include Alex McCook, but one that Graeme is more than adequately the Deputy Course Manager, qualified for. enjoyed who has been with the club for working Back in December, the long standing course twenty-seven years, and Chris manager, Joe Findlay, retired after twenty-six years Calvin, the irrigation at with the club. He was replaced by Graeme who technician who has enjoyed County originally hails from St Andrews. He took up the twenty-two years service. reigns at the end of last year following an Sligo’ The course employs its own impressive career at other venues. mechanic, Steven Walker, "I joined the greenkeeping staff at my home club, who has been with the club for thirty years.

Scotscraig Golf Club, in 1995 and went on to work at Kingsbarns from 2000 until 2006, with a spell at Graeme added: "We use the STRI for ecology and Royal Melbourne in this time. He moved to Ireland agronomy services and are into our second season of a five year ecology plan. There are five seasonal in 2006 to work at the Castle Dargan Golf Course staff for divoting and bunker raking and we will add and stayed as Course Manager until 2011. “I then more when needed." really enjoyed working as Course Manager at County Sligo GC, Rosses Point from 2011 until Continued> 2014."

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The County Sligo Golf Club The Dunluce Links at Royal Portrush Golf Club ranks amongst the world's greatest courses.

Unimaginable rough and testing greens, combined with the unpredictable weather of the roaring North Atlantic make this course an admirable test for even the most seasoned golf aficionado.

Another link between Rosses Point and Royal Portrush is that the design of both courses was mastered by one of golf's greatest course architects, Harry Colt. He used the natural contours and dunes of the links land at both locations to

Issue 11 – October 2015 create a legacy that attracts golfers from all across the globe.

Portrush & County Sligo are both Colt designed courses The 6,867 yard Dunluce course, which has been extended to just under 7,200 yards, is routed through rugged links land, and constantly changes in both direction and elevation, whilst all the time providing some of the most awe-inspiring scenery to be found in Ireland.

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The County Sligo Golf Club

Issue 11 – October 2015

HOW TO REPAIR A PITCHMARK

Editor: Vincent McGee The County Sligo Golf Club 2015 ©

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.