September and October 2010
All jobs are in addition to routine maintenance tasks.
Autumn renovations
The renovations to the greens are underway on the blue and orange courses. A
two week buffer before work commences on the red and yellow greens aims to minimise
disruption over all courses. An important area of the course we are also working
to improve is over-seeding teeing areas which suffered from drought stress earlier
in the year. This is mainly on the red and yellow courses where the irrigation
provides insufficient coverage. We are currently in the early stages of planning
improvements to tee irrigation as well as water flow issues across parts of
the course.
Ryegrass removal trials
Ryegrass is a dominant plant on the golf course and it is particularly noticeable
on the orange course. The tufty nature of this grass results in difficult golf
ball lies as well as a poor appearance. With the use of a chemical product,
ryegrass control can improve both the playability and visual appearance of the
course; this also helps to achieve a clean finish from mowing. The areas we
have used as trials are: part of the 36th tee, 33rd surround, 4th semi rough
beyond fairway bunker and selected bunker edges. In areas which have large concentrations
of this coarse agricultural ryegrass, over-seeding with fine ryegrass varieties
will take place to fill in the vacant gaps. The results of these trials will
be monitored over the coming weeks.
Bridges
The new stone bridge on the 24th hole is in use but still requires some finishing
touches. We aim to complete this during October and finally remove the old wooden
bridge. The bridges on the 8th and 16th holes will be upgraded. The surface
will remain but we plan install new safety rails which will consist of an oak
frame construction. The bridge on the 20th hole (adjacent to the 16th pond)
will have new sleepers installed once the 16th lake bank project is complete.
Installation of new bank reinforcement
with 6 inch wooden stakes at 16th hole
Steady progress has been made during August. There are still more stakes to
install and this will be followed by backfilling which will allow us to reinstate
the area to grass.
Weather Report 2010
Data recorded by our automated weather
station located at Cumberwell for the first six months of this year.
| Month |
Cumberwell rainfall
(mm) |
Lyneham rainfall
(mm) |
Other information |
| January |
72 |
70.1 |
25 frosts (16 consecutive) |
| February |
80 |
50.6 |
10 frosts |
| March |
53 |
58.3 |
15 frosts |
| April |
69 |
47.7 |
5 frosts |
| May |
30 |
51.8 |
3 frosts (Last 14th
May). 5 rainy days |
| June |
32 |
58.5 |
Max temp 34°C
(27th June). 5 rainy days |
| Total |
336 |
337 |
|
Matthew James
Course Manager