Friday 29 August 2014

New bunker back of no. 3 green

The new bunker that has been built behind the 3rd green is now in play. There is still a section of the surround that is still GUR while the seed is establishing.
Previously this area was the site of a large Macrocarpa that had been causing lots of problems to both the 3rd & 15th greens. Because it was situated so close to both greens, tree roots invaded both greens causing drought stress especially late winter/early spring before consistent irrigation took place. Any rain that we did get rarely reached the turf surface because of the dense canopy and overhanging branches.The tree also shed a lot of debris in windy conditions and increasingly impacted on the quality & maintenance of the green. The decision to remove the tree did take a while to eventuate but I'm sure the results from it's removal will start to show quite soon.
It took some time to get the entire root ball out of the ground to be able to build the bunker in that position.
Macrocarpa back 3rd green
New bunker back 3rd green

A lot of root pruning to get the stump out


The finished  bunker

Thursday 21 August 2014

Fairway venting

With such a wet winter the fairways have been struggling to drain well and the earthworms have been loving it. We have had a little dry spell and we have taken the opportunity to vertidrain the tees, surrounds and fairways. We have used 18 mm solid tynes at 150mm depth with a 5 degree kick to shatter the soil and hopefully remove surface water when it does rain again.
As usual we take great care to stake sprinklers, QC valves and valve boxes but we often have cause for concern for the underground wiring and irrigation pipework. When it was installed many years ago, the cable was mole ploughed at a depth of 75-100mm over quite a large part of the golf course. Over the time I have been at Avondale Golf Club we have found out about these areas when we have vertidrained and have had power issues with the system. Since then we have used a cable locator to trace the cable around the course and ascertain the depth at regular intervals. We have this information drawn on a map of the course for future reference. Over the years we have replaced quite a few of the worst areas of cable that have caused us problems. With  the new areas of trenched cable at a depth of 350-400mm these should be good for many years.

As it turns out we don't always miss these shallow areas!

Another problem we encountered when vertidraining was hitting this 100mm mainline. This pipe was hit quite a few years ago when we first started vertidraining fairways. No one at the club told me many years ago this area of fairway was lowered, or that they left the pipework in its original position!








Sunday 17 August 2014

Welcome

Welcome to my new blog about Turfworks Contracting and the work we do, mainly at Avondale Golf Club, in Christchurch, New Zealand.
As a relatively late starter in the field of social media, I have been looking at ways to better inform members of the golf club and other users of the facility at Avondale Golf Club about what we do, why we do it and the benefits we get from the maintenance practise's we carry out.
As a small contracting company with 2 employees we manage an 18 hole golf course on a very small tract of land (approx. 35 Hectares or 86.5 Acres) surrounded by houses on 3 sides and a busy road on the 4th side.


The golf course is situated on an undulating sand belt not far from the Avon River ( in places 200 metres from the river) and has sections that are low lying, capped with a heavy silty loam and a very shallow water table during the winter months. The course is generally well drained, greens consist of  Browntop Bent(90%) tees & fairways are mainly Browntop Bent, Poa annua & Ryegrass, and the rough is a mixture of Browntop Bent, Fine Fescue and Ryegrass.
We obviously have issues and limitations that we have to deal with and during the course of this blog I hope to explain in more detail what we do and where we are going with the golf course.
As a side note I would also like to mention we were dealt a massive blow on February 22nd, 2011 when a large earthquake hit Christchurch and the Canterbury region. Our golf course was severely damaged and I will post more detailed information about that on a separate page.
I hope this blog will be informative, interesting and fun. Any comments and feedback will be appreciated.

Cheers for now,
Garry