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 !