August 2014

The dry winter weather has been great for course condition and also for getting some work done on the course. Some of our winter projects have been to trim all low branches to make mowing easier and to allow better access for golfers. We have been leveling sprinklers around greens and auditing the tee sprinklers to ensure optimum performance.

After the construction of the new maintenance shed, we have sorted and cleaned up around our sheds, allowing better access to equipment.

The biggest project we have recently undertaken is the fairway irrigation on the 1st fairway.

Fairway irrigation is an important ongoing project, as it makes the course better for both golfers, and staff members.

On fairways without irrigation, we have to drag long hoses out and these obstruct play for days on end. It takes days to water some fairways, as the sprinklers only throw 10 meters and we have to have them in the same spot for up to two hours in summer. Since it takes about a hour for a staff member to do a complete lap of the course, moving all the sprinklers, this means a staff member is tied up for the best part of two or three days, unable to assist in normal day to day operations. With fairway irrigation, we can apply water to the whole fairway in one hit, during the night, meaning that the watering does not interrupt play at all 

This also helps with chemical application, as some chemicals and fertilisers need to be washed into the root layer to be properly effective.

We are currently putting the finishing touches on the 1st fairway irrigation. The fairway has been separated into two sections for pressure and flow management. The green half of the fairway has been completed and activated, while the tee end, just needs to be bolted into place to be operational.

Bad weather holds up bolting the main line into the tee half, as the pit that the fittings are in, becomes muddy, and we do not want any of this sludge to get into the main lines as this could potentially clog up sprinklers around the course.

Luckily, the rain also means that we do not need the irrigation for the first fairway just yet, and after it clears up, we will have plenty of time to finish this project.

The heavy rain recently, has filled the dam to capacity, meaning that we have plenty of water after this rain all clears up.

April 2014

During our last blog entry, I wrote about the sandstone capping at the 10^th. This project is still ongoing and we have been granted an extension on how much area we can work with, greatly increasing the volume of sandstone we can accept. This means we will end up with a much better final product, which is worth the extra time it will take to get the materials. We are so far impressed by the quality of material we are getting and will only accept the best quality sandstone.

In the picture below, the area of cleared weeds on the left is the new approved fill spot. This has doubled the area.

We have recently finished two large projects at the 5^th green. The path between the trees towards the 6^th tee has been widened and is now open to carts again.

We have also reshaped the whole section below the granite path leading to the green, creating a gentler slope and allowing the whole area to be more playable.

Construction has been completed on an extension to the maintenance shed above the 12^th tee. This provides staff with more room to park our fleet of equipment and provide Lance, our equipment technician, with better working conditions, a perfectly smooth concrete base to aid in the exact calibration and setting of machinery and an area for more work benches and a hoist.

A section of ryegrass on the right of the 13^th green has been removed and replaced with harder wearing couch. The area has been smoothed out, removing a dip, meaning players will not be punished for missing the green by a small margin.

We are currently conducting a trial for the rough and fairway on the 18^th. By rounding the end of the fairway and creating a strip of rough we hope to accomplish two things.

Firstly, we hope to aid balls that are just short of the green rolling all the way back down the hill while secondly and primarily, the longer turf will resist wear better, removing the large dead patch that forms from cart and foot traffic leaving the 18^th green

Over summer the dam looked very low. This was not quite true though. The dam still had 1.8m of depth, meaning very roughly 5 million litres of water remaining for irrigation. During the continued dry spells of summer, we did not have to stop watering tees or fairways, which are the first to have irrigation dropped, prioritizing greens. We have lasted through the heat of summer and now the dam is almost full and we can expect continued cooler weather, meaning less irrigation will be required.

Well needed rain

Our bush regeneration project between the 10^th and 4^th has got off to a good start. We have begun getting our sandstone tipped and we have plenty more to come.

The end result will be a smoother bank down from the 4^th instead of the steep drop off that currently exists. We have been sourcing our crushed sandstone from local building projects, so most the fill is local. Once we tip and level enough sandstone, we will mulch it and plant it out with native plants from the area. This will encourage native animals to populate the area and (due to the openness) make the area feel larger and less crowded.

The thick layer of sandstone will also make it impossible for the seed-bank produced by weeds and non native plants over many years to get to the surface and become a problem again.

Coupled with our bush management plan, this area will stay as a successful native regeneration site.

As well as the bush regeneration plan, we have also started a big push on getting the tee gardens in prime condition. This is an ongoing and time consuming task, but the end result makes it well and truly worth it.

In preparation of today’s heavy rain, we aerated, fertilized and applied wetting agent to some of our worn areas, including most notably, the slope in front of the 9^th tee and the turf between the 18^th path and fairway. The extra water from the rain, coupled with the maintenance practices we applied, will assist these areas recovering from play based wear.

The rain will also do a good job at topping up the dam, which we rely on for all our irrigation. Having the dam at a good level allows us to keep our fairways well watered, meaning we do not suffer from fairway dry spots or yellowing as a lot of courses with smaller dams or catchments do.

July and August at Northbridge Golf Club

Recent prolonged wet weather has had a major effect on maintenance programs and what we have been capable of accomplishing. We have had over 400mm since the 6th of May, which is more than enough to fill the dam from empty, which it well and truly is not.

Luckily, the last month has seen some dry conditions come our way, meaning we can get all the mowers back out on the course and begin with our next projects.



We have been concentrating on drainage project, particularly an area between the 13th green and 14th tee, at the top of the new granite path. We cut quite a deep drain and connected it to existing drainage to solve issues that have left the area soaked in the past. We have seen good results so far.

While doing the drainage trenching, we reshaped around the 13th green to make it mower and play friendly, meaning that we can accomplish a better quality surrounds.



When we completed that drain, we cut a series of fairway and rough drains on 2nd. We constructed an extensive network of drains to fix up a prolific wet area formed by runoff and seepage from the bushland banks above the second green and 3rd back tee

As per standard construction, the drains are constructed by digging a trench with a trenching machine with a fall of 1m per 100m. The trencher then has to be followed along and all the soil taken away. This is possibly the most labour intensive part of the project, since this has to be done by hand. We then place 50mm of fine gravel in the base of the trench, followed by ag-pipe, and then the pipe is surrounded and covered by gravel to another 50mm of depth. The rest of the trench is then filled completely with sand.


This creates a path of least resistance for the water to follow and promotes the water following the pipe, instead of travelling through the thicker and heavier soil around itself.

We have been continuing the path program, repairing and replacing some older damaged paths. We have been trailing different rates of granite, concrete and bonding agents to try and accomplish the best quality possible. Granite alone wears down over time and pure concrete is too expensive to be practical. We have set up some trial sites to test different rates, combinations and thicknesses to find the most resilient and cost effective combination. We will continue to monitor the results over the next 12 months and then when we are satisfied with the long term results, we will resurface existing paths to create a superior finish.

The bushland regeneration project for the left side of 10th fairway has been approved by council, meaning that we shall start work in the next month or two, depending on the availability of crushed sandstone that we can bring into the area, since we will need a lot for the project of the size we wish to accomplish. This project will completely eradicate the weeds in the area and create another pocket of native vegetation in the area, which not only provides a beautiful setting for our course, but allows native wildlife, such as birds and lizards, to begin repopulating the area.

Winter is coming. May/June 2013

This time of year the weather has a big impact on course maintenance programs. Periods of heavy rain can leave the course saturated for extended periods of time, restricting the equipment we are able to put on the turf. This significantly effects work scheduling.

With the coming of winter, we can expect more bad weather. We still have plenty of work to do in the rain. It makes a perfect time to catch up on housekeeping, gardening and paperwork jobs, which the summer workload does not allow sufficient time for.

Over the last month, we have been continuing with the path program, constructing new granite pathways and turfing to blend them into the surrounding turf.

We have decided to put a row of Couch along the paths, since Kikuyu has a tendency to quickly overgrow paths, leading to higher maintenance requirements. Couch is also more wear resistant, allowing for the high traffic the edges of the paths receive.

The most recent path to be completed was the 2^nd hole. As well as removing the old mulch path, opening up more playable turf below the ladies plates on the 3^rd, creating a firm base and loosening compacted soil around the path, we created a diversion hump below the back tee at the 3^rd to force the run-off water from the 3^rd tees to flow through the gardens into the dam instead of on to the 2^nd fairway.

The existing granite path around the 7^th green has been extended to the front of the green, creating a much smoother route up to the 8^th tee. We also repaired a number of worn patches in the rough left of the green.

The path on the left of the 8^th green extends from the left bunker to the 9^th tee. This took a bit extra time since we had to remove quite a bit of sandstone which was just beneath the surface. The removal of this sandstone will allow the new turf to thrive with a deeper soil profile. 

The 14^th path is the longest of the granite paths, going from just below the 14^th tee, all the way to the fairway along the tree line of the 18^th.

These new paths are making huge difference to the course. Not only do they improve the aesthetics of the course, creating a better looking and smoother journey around the course, it also greatly aids in the reduction of wear on the turf and the golf carts.

April 2013

Summer is thankfully on its way out, meaning that we can start dedicating more time to course improvement projects that are practically impossible during the rush of summer.


One such project is the path program.


So far we have prepared and installed granite paths at the 6th (extending path below green), 7th (Extending path from tee’s to fairway and reshaping of surrounding rough), 15th (Path from tee to trees below green) and the 18th (significantly extended path below tee). We are pleased with the outcome and are now preparing the next phase

The second phase will be below the 7th green, above the bunker at the 8th green, down the treeline between the 14th and 18th holes and the final connection at the 15th green joining the granite to the concrete.

Weather permitting; the contractors are booked in to start work on the remaining granite paths on Monday, April 29th.

During April we have oversown our shaded tee’s with ryegrass to improve the grass coverage during winter. The tees done are the middle and front tees at 5, all the tees at 6, 8th, 9th, both tees at 10 and both tees at 14.

While doing this we have oversown 6th, 7th and 8th fairways, which also suffer from shade problems during winter. This was combined with a good application of fungicide on all the fairways to prevent diseases such as Winter Fuserium.

The championship tee at 11 has been completely re-levelled and returfed providing a smooth, true surface for play. It is currently growing in well and is much improved on its old condition. This will be open for play approximately in the middle of May.

 

The path at the 11th green has been widened to allow better two way traffic flow and new turf has been laid alongside it.

We are beginning the construction of a new, extended nursery at the 17th for greens quality turf to go along with our fairway/tee nursery. This will be used to replace damaged sections of greens from vandalism and the effects of winter, meaning less downtime and better quality greens.

We plan to begin the removal of Nutgrass, kikuyu and blue couch from the greens, providing a smoother, higher quality putting surface.

It is our aim to provide our members and visitors with the best possible playing surface and a memorable day of golfing and we believe that these projects will help us towards this goal.

-Course maintenance team

New turf coming into summer

It has been 12 months since we received the soil from Northbridge oval and the soil levy work started. Combined with the fairway irrigation and water availability from the dam, we have been able to push Northbridge GC in the direction that we all know it should go.

The 12^th fairway is a perfect example of this. It is amazing how much the new works have improved the fairway. The rough beneath the 13^th tee’s used to be a thin, bare area where no grass would grow, but now we have thick kikuyu growing strongly. What would have used to be considered a bad lie for a ball is now perfectly playable. It also makes the hole play longer as balls hitting the rough are stopped quickly by the thick grass. It now requires a more accurate shot on the fairway.

Still on the 12^th fairway, the removal of the temporary green has added a smoother area of turf cut at fairway height meaning that less balls will roll down the bank into the rough, or if unlucky, into the gully.

While possibly the most evidently different, we cannot forget about other works that have occurred around the course. At the 7^th, bare patches on the left of the fairway and below the 8^th tee banks have been fixed and are now well growing rough.

The removal of the ridge in front of the 9^th tee has also made an impressive difference, removing the rocky, dirt covered mounds and not only providing a better playing surface, but also allowing a view down the fairway from the tee.

Work has been completed on the right side of the 8^th fairway, green end of the 9^th, reshaping around the dam on the 13^th fairway and 11^th green and small patches throughout all the fairways having almost seamlessly blended in now

Earlier this month, we completed shaping and turfing the area on the left of the 14^th fairway, just below the 18^th green and the path down from the 18^th tee to fairway. On top of being aesthetically better, the new turf on the path will provide a much smoother ride on the golf carts. With the completion of these two sites, we have moved almost 3,500 cubic meters (roughly 5000 tonnes) of soil over the last 12 months.

There is no doubt, the soil from Northbridge Oval has been a blessing and the Soil levy projects a great success. We continue to see the course improving, making it a better place for members and social golfers to visit.

On behalf of myself, Brendan, Lance, and all the greens we would like to wish all members a great Christmas and New Year.

Malcolm Harris.