January Green Keeper Update

Just 4 weeks ago December brought us a day of heavy snow which hung around for a week and once it thawed it left the greens and fairways extremely wet, something that we are still feeling the effects of now. Along with the snow we have had bouts of heavy rain and then some reasonably dry days that have not been enough to dry the course out completely.

January be a dismal month but February can be ever worse for frost and extreme wintery conditions. Often we think that the weather is improving in January only for works to be thwarted. If the recent forecasts are correct then 2023 will be warmer than 2022 and perhaps this may be the worst we get this winter in January. The summer months were very warm and we lost a lot of grass like many other courses and this has led to many of our fairways to become muddy without grass and roots to hold the soil structure together.

To try and drain some of the worst areas in January we will be using Bury Turf Care to deep aerate some of the worst greens and surrounds. Their system blasts air down to half a metre and decompacts the soil allowing water to drain, we did this last year and it was very effective. Once we are able to get the first green drier we will be able to deep graden and add sand into the lines which will firm up the greens.

Along with the oxy shot we are going to slit and spike the fairways , although this will not clear the muddy areas it should dissipate some of the wet boggy areas and help with the drainage.

January is a difficult month to be able to fully maintain the course as the weather dictates how much we can reasonably do and even if we can get onto the course. There is always days when we can cut and maintain features but that is often the best day out of a bad lot and often a decision to do maintenance can be on a day when the conditions are far from ideal but if a chance to do work isn’t taken it can be days or weeks before another comes around.

During the build up to spring and on days when we can access the course there is the usual tree lifting and removal of epicormics growth along with some small trees that are dead or dying that need to be removed.

It is really clear that we do not know what the next months will bring and usual patterns have changed but adapting to the conditions is really important to ensure that the course does not suffer.