32 HHGC Seniors made their annual pilgrimage to Cowdray Park on Friday 27th July. The course was as usual in fabulous condition helped by fairway watering. 

The weather was hot and humid as we have got used to. Fortunately the forecasted lightning/thunder and heavy rain stayed away, although the last team in got a sprinkling.

Photo shows happy Seniors at the end of a satisfying day at Cowdray Park.

Result of team competition:

1st   E Brooks/M Bawden/A Crook       87 stapleford points

2nd  L Kruse/T Holman/D Gough         84

3rd  D Maxwell/J Blackwell/A Gimson  79 (on CB)

4th  M Shaw/ A Casper/ K Bunker       79

Nearest the pin. Hole 3: A Jones. Hole 9: A Mackenzie

Everyone was delighted the course was open for Tuesday’s Ladies' Golf Foundation Stableford.

Spring had sprung and the trees were becoming a haze of green with the woods filled with white wood anemone.  The sky was blue, the sun shone so what more could you ask for other than to play well?

Thirty one ladies played in this charity competition with a percentage of the entry fee going to the Golf Foundation which helps young people to enjoy the playing of golf.

Result for Div 1 1st Janet Garbutt 32 points 2nd Alison Hopson 32 points 3rd Liz Barrett 30 points who were also overall winners

Div 2 1st Lynn Deth 26 points  2nd Joy Mayall 22 points 3rd Rosemary Parvin 22 points 

Congratulations ladies

 

Apologies that I'm a little late with this autumn update, there's been so much going on over the last few months that I got a little distracted!

As always, any feedback about this update or the course in general would be welcomed, please just email me at asjenks56@gmail.com.

Course condition

What a summer and autumn we have had, with long periods of glorious sunshine and very little rain falling.

It has undoubtedly helped the condition of the course and I genuinely cannot remember it playing as well over such a sustained period. If anyone knows how we can order up something similar for next year then please do get in touch!

The greens, in particular, have been in wonderful condition since May. The sward has remained thick and very healthy through the summer as a result of Peter's verticutting the greens on a regular basis (Verticutting increases turf density by cutting the grass stems that try and grow laterally).

The greens have also maintained a good pace and, of late, downhill putts have started to become very challenging!

However, it always seems to be the case that the conditions that golfers love also provide significant challenges for the greens team as you will see later in this update … a case of half full or half empty I suppose!

Drainage

In my last update I detailed the drainage work we had planned for this year and it was a long list.

I'm pleased to report that we've managed to complete all the major ditch work and are hoping there won't be a need for any more. We may be proved wrong when the heavy rains do arrive but, for now, we don't think there should be.

There are a number of smaller jobs to complete before the spring, some of which are:-

• the ditch on the right of the practice ground will be connected into the main drain that runs across the course from the 4^th hole across to the bottom of the 9^th

• we will be installing open drains at the bottom of the tarmac paths on the 5^th and 6^th so that surface water coming down the paths is collected into the drainage ditch

• another sleeper bridge will be built to provide access by the 8^th green onto the top practice area.

Although we haven't had much rain, when we did have a deluge about three weekends ago the ditches really did their job, with them all pretty much full to overflowing.

It was particularly pleasing that the open ditch below the bank on the 5^th and 6^th holes worked wonders during that deluge. Unless you've hit a truly dreadful shot on the 5^th you won't be aware of the deep, wide and very long holding ditch that runs alongside the hedge, beyond the bank on the right hand side. Its purpose is to collect the rainwater that gets caught in the stone filled ditch. Following that downpour it resembled a swimming pool, so much so that we will be making it even bigger at some point over the next few months!

We are leaving the ditch across the 5^th and 6^th holes open until next spring so that we can really understand where the surface water that rushes down from the 6^th fairway crosses the ditch. Our hope is that we can install a few open drains so that the bulk of the water is quickly caught by the drainage ditch, rather than run over the top of the stones. We would then hope to be able to seed or turf the remainder of the ditch.

One of the drawbacks of the wonderful golfing weather we've had of late is that there has been very little rain. “Bah humbug” I hear you shout, but from a greens perspective it really does present some problems.

We had hoped to use a machine called the Shattermaster continuously this autumn, the picture below shows you what it looks like.

The Shattermaster is pulled by a tractor and the twelve inch blades are pulled through the soil but, because of their design, they vibrate as they move through the soil, causing the clay to fissure. The rollers at the back smooth down any ground that is pulled up. We have modified our Shattermaster by welding metal bullets onto the blades so they also create a narrow tunnel through the soil to allow excess water to drain away.

Our intention is to Shattermaster the whole course so that those tunnels lead to one of the ditches we have installed. The slits and fissures through the ground will allow rainwater to quickly permeate through the surface and either drain away below ground or slowly trickle along one of the tunnels to eventually end up in a ditch.

However, our problem is that the ground is still so hard, just an inch or so below the surface, that the Shattermaster blades can't break into the soil! So, we have reverted to deep slitting for a while and although the blades are only going in about four inches it will help to soften the ground so that we can, hopefully, get the Shattermaster into action soon.

Bunkers

At the start of the year Peter developed an idea for how we could improve the drainage in our bunkers without the expense of digging them up and starting again, an expense we simply could not afford. We discussed the approach with our agronomist and course architect and they both gave it their seal of approval.

The new approach is to dig a deep, sometimes very deep, ditch the full length of the bunker. This is filled with different gradients of stone to provide what is effectively a sump. The sump has an exit drain to take excess water away. We then lay a deep layer of sand, deep enough for the stones not to be disturbed by people moving their feet to get a stance. The sand layer is compressed down to form a firm base onto which the top covering of sand is placed.

We have used the new approach in the greenside bunkers on the 13^th, 15^th and 16^th and it really is working well. After the recent deluge those bunkers drained very quickly while the others filled with water and were out of action for some time.

The two fairway bunkers on the 1^st hole and the greenside bunkers to the left of the 1^st and 3^rd holes are just being finished off using the same technique, although for these four we will be hiring in a 'whacker plate' to see if that helps with creating an even firmer base. If the fine weather continues we may use the same technique on the two bunkers on the 8^th hole sometime over the winter.

Divot bag stations

I think it's time to dispel the rumours that we are installing gallows or giant bird tables around the course!

Thanks to a very generous member donation we have had built three divot bag stations that are situated by the 1^st/10^th, 5^th and 15^th tees. Each station will shortly have a bin alongside it for empty bags (please, no litter) and there will be another one by the shoe cleaner. The bags have a small carabiner clip attached to the drawstrings so the divot bag can easily be attached to a golf bag or trolley.

The stations will be operational from the 2^nd January and the bags will be refilled each day by the greens staff. During the colder months the bags will only contain a growing medium but this will fill the hole, provide a level surface and allow the grass roots to grow across the divot once the warmer weather returns, so it is still important. During the growing season grass seed will be added to the growing medium so that regrowth will be more rapid.

I am hoping that all members will play their part by taking a divot bag out with them whenever they play. Our fairways were in tremendous condition this year but wouldn't it be nice if they were even better next year.

Leaves, leaves and more leaves

We love our trees in the spring as the buds open and the course is enveloped in a fresh, green coat.  We adore our trees during the summer as they fill out, mature and look so beautiful.  There are hardly words to describe the beauty that is autumn, as their leaves turn so many shades of red and gold.

And then we hate our trees as they drop their canopies over the course, we struggle to find our ball amongst the sea of leaves and all we have to look forward to is the winter!!

I'm not being flippant about the problem, because it is a real problem, but equally it is a drawback of playing on such a beautiful tree lined course and being surrounded by woodland and hedges.

I decided to spend an hour on Google to quantify the problem we have. Evidently there are 200,000 leaves on a mature oak tree and ta similar number on a beech or ash tree. On a small, mature tree such as a birch or maple there are in the region of 30,000 leaves. So, I did some maths and estimate there are in excess of 45 million leaves that can fall on our course and this year it feels like they all have done just that!

It is a physical impossibility for the greens staff to clear that number of leaves, particularly in a year such as this when they have remained dry and get blown about by the lightest of winds.

The greens staff blow the leaves off all greens, tees and bunkers every morning. The team regularly collect leaves and dump them in massive piles in the woods around the course.

The 4^th hole seems particularly bad this year but it has been cleared, completely, four times already this autumn. As it takes three of the four greens staff half a day to clear that fairway, alongside all the other jobs they have to do, it simply is not possible to clear them all by hand.

So, we have started investigating whether there is some sort of machine that can help. Similar research was done a number of years ago and no suitable solution could be found but it is worth another look.

However, I don't want to raise expectations too high. For instance, we know there is one machine, called an Amazon, that is reportedly very effective at picking up leaves. But it is also a heavy machine so although it would have done a great job this year, it wouldn't have got out of the green keeping shed last year when ground conditions were so soft.

I'm intending to report back to Management Committee in the spring, so for now it is a bit of watch this space and, in the meantime, we will continue to clear as many as we can.

Pitch marks, a plea

I'm always perplexed when I hear someone say “I don't make pitch marks”. The inescapable truth is that we all make pitch marks no matter what standard of golf we play.

Whenever a ball strikes the green, either from a nicely lofted iron or from a badly thinned wood travelling like an Excocet, it will make some sort of mark.

At this time of year in particular, pitch marks make the green unsightly and can easily affect the roll of a putt. So, there are already two good reasons to repair them.

However, there is a third, very real and relevant reason.

Like most golf courses we have a fungal disease called Fusarium which lies dormant in the soil until the right conditions exist for it to rapidly multiply. There is no way of eradicating Fusarium, it can only be chemically treated once it starts to bloom.

Pitch marks left unrepaired provide a perfect place for a microclimate to form and for the fungus to flourish. Once it has a hold we have no option but to spray to avoid lasting damage. That costs £1,000 for one application on all greens. A very powerful argument that, if we were all more diligent, might be a battle we could win, or at least not lose.

But repairing a pitchmark properly isn't as obvious as you'd first think. There is definitely a right and wrong way and so I've included below a diagram that explains the best way to repair them so that the green recovers quickly.  Copies will also be posted around the clubhouse as a reminder.

Signing off

That just leaves me to say that I hope your 2016 golfing was better than you had hoped and that 2017 proves to be even better and also to wish you all a Happy Christmas and a great New Year.

Al Jenks

Greens Chairman