Last week I made mention that there was a hint that Spring is on the way and it would seem that this week is going to confirm it. The weather forecast is looking wonderful all the way up until Sunday.

On the course we are ‘making hay while the sun shines’ so to speak and are using these ideal conditions to get as much spraying done as we can. We have given the greens a strong liquid fertilizer today and the rest of the team is busy with knapsacks and portable sprayers. The aim is to try and spray all the weeds under trees and along boundary lines by the ned of the week which will help make the course look a lot neater. Unfortunately, the ground is still very soft though and we are still unable to get the spray rigs out on the fairways and rough to spray Kikuyu, Daisies and other weeds. As soon as the ground is firm enough for these very heavy machines and there is not too much wind, we will be out spraying those areas too.

Added to that, we are also Verti – Draining all the greens again this week. As mentioned in previous updates, this involves punching very small but very deep holes in the greens the improve the ability of the greens to drain excess water, provide vital oxygen to the roots and help the greens to dry out faster and thus become firmer. This is a regular practice and normally takes 4 full days to get all the greens done, please be patient if you see the tractor on the green. It is a painfully slow process, it moves along at only 0.8 km/hour!

Verti Draining greens at every opportunity….

The team have been hand mowing the rough for the last 3 weeks (due to the very soft ground and machines not able to mow) with Fly mowers and Strimmer’s which has been tough on the lads. We are hopeful that later this week the ground conditions will be firm enough to get the rough mowers out to cut as much rough as possible, if not all. Hold thumbs we can, yesterday the Greens mowers got stuck a total of 5 times and twice mowing Tees and those machines are much lighter than the rough mowers.

We are hopeful that it will not be too long before golf carts will be allowed out on the golf course again. Correct golf cart usage is vital if we are to use the golf carts effectively without causing damage to the course or getting in the way of other golfers. Please take the time to view this short educational video from the USGA which gives great guidelines for golf cart and trundler usage:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2PKDVsHqiE