Wembley Pitch - FA Cup semi final preparations

This is how they do it in preparations for the FA Cup.

Recent General Course Inprovements

With growing season slowing down we have had the opportunity to get to a few extra projects on the golf course to improve not the playability but the aesthetics of the course.

The wood cladding the 18th tee box have been rotting away and needed replacing..

Here you can see how its rotten away...

The wall was stripped cleaned and prepared for the new wood to be installed.

The front was fixed and redone entirely

The new pine that is treated and got a guarantee for 30 years installed and stained.

We have rebuild all the water fountains on the course with a new basin and a tap system. The pressure problems has been solve and now our members can enjoy nice cold tap water on the course.

With the new and bigger cart fleet we have installed new and more traffic stakes to manage the cart traffic on the course better. 

We have new tee marker ready that you will see out on the course after Club champs weekend .

Cyclone Irina hit Durban...

As most of you are aware we had a flood in the last week of November 2011 where the 16th , 9th and 15th fairways where a meter (36inches) under water for a week before we could pump it off. January arrived and we had 9mm rain for the first 2 months of the year with temperatures averaging 32C + (95F) and the course dried out tremendously being build on sand dunes. Then...

Cyclone Irina hits Durban and drops 230mm (9inches) of rain in 12 hours, flooding the the course again !

16th Fairway

9th Fairway

Driving Range

I took the TLB and made a trench through the road running next to the 16th fairway and installed a drain , draining excess water standing on the fairway in case the ever happens again.

It took us 4 days to pump all the water ,clean the course , fix all the bunkers and cut up and remove the 13 trees that wnet down in the storm. 

Hero to Zero !

Its amazing how mother nature can make a golf course superintendent go from hero to zero in no time ! November we had a flood at DCC and the course was unplayable for a week and only dried out after 2 weeks of pumping and moving water of the course. January arrives and we have 10% of our normal rainfall in January with our water supply to the course down by 80% and the golf course drying out quikly...

Hole 1 at DCC on the 3rd of January 2012 

Hole 1 at DCC on the 23rd of January 2012

The front holes 1-8 are build on old sand dunes and drains very well so these holes where the first to start burning due to the heat. The rest of the golf course is mainly build on a clay soil structure and retains more water keeping it green for longer.

Our water supply to the golf course comes from a well point that was taken out by the flood and we are awaiting the last few parts to arrive to get it back and running as it all had to be imported. For now we need to hope and pray for rain as the golf course it taking strain with hardly enough water for tee's and greens.

Flood recovery and other...

As most of you are aware we had a flood on the course less then a month ago and we have been cleaning up and getting the course right to where is was and even better in some areas.

Some areas the earth was so saturated that the water was not going anywhere and we had to move it by hand as it was to little to pump.

In less then a week of pumping 24/7 we got the course dry and in a playable condition.

 9th Fairway almost back to normal after some cultural practises

16th fairway looking reasonable good again.

We have had some fairways and rough areas get invested by crickets and have sprayed to get rid of them.

We are in a process of spraying out any foreign grasses and weed on the course so please bare with us in areas where the native grasses are growing back and it looks a bit bare.

We have been busy with a tree program cutting and shaping trees and the coastal bush so that mowers and players can move freely under and around them.

Nice Video of what Durban County Club is all about !

http://www.golfinfosa.com/#durban-country-club

Golf Course Flooded !

When it rains it pours !!! There is no more truer saying then that... Over November we have 300mm (12inches) of rain so the course has been very saturated so much that we have started to see water standing in area where it normally drains away naturally. Its been a very wet month for us to start with and then on Sunday night the heavens opened up and dropped 125mm (5inches) in about 3 hours flooding all the bunkers and leaving water standing on every fairway. Durban Country club sits between Morningside town that's on a hill and the see, so all off the water passes through a culvit next to the 16th into the river that runs to the see. This was to much water for our culvit and it over flowed onto the course leaving the Driving range, 16th and 9th fairway under +- 1m (40inches) of water !!!

16th Fairway Sunday Morning...

16th Fairway Monday Morning...

9th Fairway

Water level on the driving range as seen on the trees...

3rd Fairway

14th Fairway

All the bunkers got flooded and needs to be repaired....

Pumping the water of the fairways with every pump we can lay our hand on.

Pumping 320 cubic liters per hour 24/7

After 3 days of pumping there is hope !

This rain puts us on 428mm for November...

The course should be open for play Friday and there will be a local rule in place for fairway 16 and 9. Cart will only be aloud one the fairways have dried out. Please bear with us.

Why the course was closed on Saturday...

Rain rain rain.... we had 2inches (50mm) during last week, But Friday night and Saturday the heavens opened up and we got 4inches (106mm) that flooded the greens and left water standing on all the greens and fairways

 5th green and fairway

 9th green

Road to halfway

16th fairway

On Sunday the greens where dry and playable and ready for you golfers. The bunkers had to be pumped to get the dry and they where done by mid morning today Monday.

Tree removal at no.10 green.

The last week we have removed 6 Non indigenous (exotic umdoni) trees surrounding the 10th green. These trees where removed as they where non indigenous and where causing the green to struggle due to the amounts of shade they cast for long periods of time during the day.

The tree stump where grind away to 30cm/ 12 inches under the ground for us to fill the holes with a growing medium and grow new grass over the old stumps.

Here is a video of the stump grinder going to work with a tree stump.

4th Green gets a drainage system

As many of you are aware, the 4th green sits in a very low laying area in the shape of a bowl. This green has been a problem green when it comes to heavy rain as it flood quickly due to the fact that is lying in a dip and the green subsoil system is mainly clay so it does not drain. Water gets to stand on it for long periods of time causing the grass to struggle and algae growth to occur which results to plant death.

This has caused problems before especially through the rainy season and we had to take action by installing a drain. We started the day after the Suncoust classic and only took 3 days to complete. Take in consideration installing a drain in an existing green is a very delicate process as you need to make sure you don't damage the rest of the green

We started by striping the lawn nicely so that we can put it back in the order it was taken off.

 This is a profile pic of the growing medium on the 4th green. 6 Months ago we drilled holes in the green with a big drill that was 20cm wide and replaced the growing medium to help with the draining. You can clearly see the layering and clay in the green on the left and the right is the new growing medium.

All the old growing medium was removed and the levels where done with a laser leveler tool. The drain runs with a 5% fall from back to front and drops 30cm over the length of the green.

 We installed a 110mm perforated drain pipe in the green.

The pipe was then covered with 7mm gravel stone and covered with bidim to stop sand going  into to stone or pipe.

The new growing medium filled the rest of the trench and it was compacted and ready for lawn.

Here you can see the drain working as we flood the area to compact before we re sod.

Sodding all done and green to be rolled and opened the next day !

Green opened the next day !