Signing Off

As many of you know locally, I have finished as Superintendent at Sea Temple GC and commence my new role as Superintendent at The Brisbane Golf Club on August 15, 2011.

I know that many members have enjoyed the blog on the course and have liked the aspect of being able to 'keep in touch' with their Port Douglas residence whilst being overseas. It has indeed been a very enjoyable period serving as your Superintendent at Sea Temple, and I for one will enjoy returning to the course for some enjoyable (or frustrating) golf in the future.

Until then, good golfing, and if you are around The Brisbane Golf Club please feel free to contact me. There are a number of excellent new initiatives underway on the golf course, including all new bunkering by Ross Watson, and my ultimate goal is to have the golf course rated as one of Australia's finest private golf clubs within the next decade. Watch this place.........perhaps not!! You'll all be able to see the progression online or within Australian golfing publications.

Thank you all for your support during my tenure at Sea Temple GC.

Sincerely - Dr Brett Morris.

Carnivale Time

Carnivale time again which we are all looking forward to. The course has come up well thanks to the efforts of all the guys on the maintenance team. The greens stimped at 12.5 feet Monday afternoon, but a half inch of rain yesterday has slowed them a little. They should be a little over 12 feet for our Bulls Masters golf day tomorrow. Good luck to all participants.

Augusta

As noted earlier, Masters time. If you didn't believe the 100 staff and $6 million budget and still think your course should look like Augusta no matter what, take a look at how they cut fairways:

Cutting the 1st fairway

These are Toro mowers painted green and grey.

Greens Renovations

We have completed the first stage of our greens renovations today thanks to some fine and dry weather. We verti-cut the greens twice which removed excess organic matter, applied the Profile, then topdressed. Tomorrow we will start aerifying and rolling. We anticipate that we should be completed by late Wednesday or Thursday dependent on weather. Fast recovery is expected.

Profile

Starting next week we will be introducing a product called Profile to the greens. Profile is a porous ceramic which has a number of benefits including increasing root mass, reducing nutrient leaching and increasing oxygen levels within the root zone to name several. Following verti-cutting next week, we will add the Profile to the greens and sweep it into the green before topdressing. Our topdressing sand will also have Profile blended into it, so whenever we dust the greens we are adding a little more each time - which will improve the greens long term.

There are many products around the market such as Profile which you may not have heard of, or realised that Superintendents are using in their maintenance programmes. If you are interested in reading more about it, click on the following link:

Profile Porous Ceramic

Greens Renovations

We will be renovating the greens starting next Monday the 28th. The process should see a quick recovery this year given the strength and condition of the greens following the wet season. We will be verti-cutting and topdressing. Following the topdressing we will aerate and roll. Recovery should be well within 10 days with favourable weather conditions.

Augusta National Changes

Masters time in a couple of weeks. I was fortunate enough to attend the Masters in 1996 as a guest of Mr Hall Thompson, the late owner of Shoal Creek GC in Alabama, and member of Augusta. Mr Thompson used to fly his employees over to Augusta for the tournament each year which was a great thrill. Golf Digest have put together a link showing the changes to the golf course over the years and what to expect this year.

Golf Digest Article

Unfortunately it is also the time of year where some Clubs go through the 'Augusta Syndrome' and expect their courses to look like what is on TV which places alot of pressure on their Superintendent. However it is possible to get that Augusta look. All you need is 100 staff and a $6 million budget. Simple!

Wet Weather

Well someone, somewhere, must have a voodoo doll of us and is sticking pins into it gathering by the rain which does not want to seem to stop. Over the past 20 days we have received over 750mm of rain with more continuing. The course is holding on well, but the wet conditions severely limit our regular maintenance programme. We are still able to cut rough as the mounds don't hold water and yesterday we were able to cut all but 5 fairways as they are still waterlogged in places. Fingers crossed for some sunshine soon.

Fertilisation

We have to watch our nutrient levels in this weather as the rain has a tendency to flush, or leach, nutrients away from the roots of the turf. Obviously we don't want to literally bomb the place with fertiliser and watch it wash away into the waterways, so the majority of fertiliser applications are made via foliar means which sees it directly adsorbed into the leaf. There are occasions however, when the rain eases which allows us to use a granular slow release fertiliser. Slow release is fertiliser which gradually provides nutrients to the turf for a prolonged period, ensuring that we have no rapid growth which is very important for this time of year as we don't want occasions where the grass is growing furiously and we are unable to cut it due to the weather. Today we applied a slow release fertiliser to the greens to maintain their good health in the poor conditions.

Continuing Wet Weather

Hopefully in the next day or two the wet weather will ease a little. Conditions on the course are very wet to say the least. I was hoping that we wouldn't see rainfall like we received in 2010 with 2.8m, but we have hit the halfway point of that now already this year with 1.4m received to date. Fortunately the course, and in particular the greens, is holding up very well.

Crocodiles

We have 3 crocodiles on the golf course. This is our largest, around the 3m mark who was out today on the 9th taking a bit of time to dry off following the rain over the past few days.

Heavy Rain Effects - 12th Green

Apart from the cleanup, this is one of the main concerns I have during the wet season. The 12th green sits in one of the lowest points on the golf course. As water seeps down the fairway and hits the green, it rises up through the profile (due in part to capillary action) to where the entire green is completely saturated, or full of water. This then creates a situation whereby all of the available oxygen is pushed out of the profile where the roots are located, which in turn results in a downturn in turf health - in our case by the yellowing of the leaf blade. We'll keep an eye on the green, but if the rain eases, then the natural reversal of water moving down through the profile will result in oxygen being sucked in and an improvement in turf health. Once firmer we will also be able to aerate the green to increase the recovery and oxygen levels.

February Rainfall

Just when we thought during the past couple of weeks, with all of its sunshine, that may have seen a reprieve from the norm at this time of year, down it came as many of you would have been aware.

A total of 705mm for February, the wettest February on the golf course in 5 years. Almost half of this has fallen over the past few days and now brings our total for 2011 to 1,130mm. I heard recently that La Nina was supposed to continue with us through 2011, and present indications suggest that it may be another wet year ahead.

Overnight Rainfall

That time of the year again, although one could be excused for feeling some sort of promise over the past 2 weeks with the great weather we received.

A total of 130mm overnight, with no sign of it letting up. Carts on path only today for those adventurous enough to head out.

TPC Sawgrass

When I head to the US for the GCSAA conference I always try and make it to some notable courses to discuss and compare maintenance practices. In recent years I have been to Riviera CC, Shoal Creek GC and the Cypress Point Club. This year I got to visit TPC Sawgrass, home of The Players Championship designed by Pete Dye. Here is the famous island green on the 17th.

Design Influences at Sea Temple - No. 1 'Punchbowl'

The 1st green at Sea Temple would have to rate as one of the great greens in Australia with its size and contouring. Any misplaced second, or third, shot can result in quite a difficult putt depending on where the pin location is for the day. The golf course architect, Mr Micheal Wolveridge, has kindly penned a few words about the design process behind the 1st, 'Punchbowl'.

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Opening holes have their own special place in the golfing pantheon. Always considered ideal, the 1^st hole on the Old Course at St.Andrews offers a wide open tee shot down a fairway 150 yards across. There are no bunkers yet immediately before the green, there runs across a small stream, Alas! too wide to bounce across, the Swilcan Burn formerly acting as a town sewer is now a babbling brook. This was most certainly the first water hazard in golf. The putting green is a large affair, simple and inviting just beyond the burn, it becomes devilishly difficult towards the rear as it disappears into a series of small humps reminding the unwary of the importance of clearing the burn by the very least amount. The real pressure for the visitor however is the very act of teeing off to the booming voice of the Starter from his little hut, “Play Away Sorr”. There you are, no practice, excited, tired and immediately in front of the imposing windows of the Royal & Ancient clubhouse, with God knows who staring out at you! Your caddie calls across..."Ye’ll be needin’ a ba’ to hit". Oh, where to hide!

A classic beginning hole in Australia is the 1^st at Sorrento Golf Club...quite my favourite! Most revered opening holes allow room for manoeuvre off the tee and often save the ‘shock treatment’ for the vicinity of the green....it’s the very best way to clear one’s head, or so thought I at the Links when due to the necessity of the clubhouse siting near to the road, the links aspect of the golf does not occur until players have reached the corner of the dog-leg at the first. At that point the essence of links golf takes over - open ground, a fresh southerly breeze at your face and that splendid sight of the hills and Black Mountain beyond. I wanted to make a huge green that might be easy to hit but somehow, it needed ‘livening up’ in the centre, a little hollow perhaps? Thus we settled upon a delightful punchbowl to split it in two portions with room for one pin spot only in the bowl, offering some old fashioned golfing entertainment and a positive announcement that says: “Wake up, we have arrived at the Links”.

GCSAA Conference

I'm in Orlando, Florida, at the moment attending the annual Golf Industry Show, run by the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America. It is the world's largest turf and education exhibition which this year has attracted approximately 18,000 attendees from across the globe.

Back

A bit quiet of late on the blog! I had a week off in Melbourne at the tennis, then came back to Yasi. We got very lucky when the storm moved south the day before, but our thoughts are with those people whose lives have been affected by the storm.

Direct Hit

In 20 years of working on golf courses, I've never seen anything like what we experienced on Saturday afternoon when a bolt of lightning struck the 9th fairway. It struck without any sign of lightning in the area but was following a storm which passed through north of the golf course. As there were a number of golfers who were nearby when it hit, we were extremely lucky that no one was injured. I've seen it hit trees, flagsticks on greens and satellite boxes directly, but never on an open fairway.

Damage wise, apart from the fairway, was an irrigation control board in the office and one at the nearest satellite, 6 solenoids at nearby sprinklers (which act like magnets turning the sprinkler on and off), a little bit of wire, and 1m of pipe which simply disappeared. When we dug up the blast point to repair, the pipe was gone showing the incredible power that a lightning bolt can provide.

I hope that all players following this incident will be very cautious after periods of storm activity and not race out onto the golf course thinking that everything is fine.

Aeration

Happy New Year to all.

What a great past few days of weather we've received with strong sunshine and light seabrezzes. Anyone would think it is September, not January. With these fine days, we have taken the opportunity to aerate the greens using a 3/8 inch solid tyne going down around 5 inches. Once we have finished aerating, we then run the roller over the top which leaves the surface as it was before. This has great benefits for the turf, with increased oxygen and root growth.

We will complete the aeration today, with greens 5 & 6 remaining.