A ‘perfect storm’ of weather conditions including rainfall and a stretch of hot and humid conditions certainly favoured the couch during February, with strong growth experienced particularly in the roughs, where the couch became very dense. In the space of a few days we went from the rough as we normally saw it to unable to run our mowing equipment for long enough to keep up and the inevitable impact that this has on the playability of the courses.
Thanks to the support of Jordan at Turf Equipment SA, we were able to draft in a demo rough mower for a couple of weeks that has been crucial in allowing us to get back on top of the rough areas, as we would have struggled to achieve control with our mowing equipment in the same time frame. It has also been a good opportunity to trial a machine that would be a good fit in our fleet when the time comes to change our current unit over in a year or two.
At the same time as needing to get on top of the aggressive growth we were seeing, a review of our mowing heights saw the decision made to lower the height of the rough by around 12mm, which should provide a little more ease in both finding and playing your ball from the roughs. The downside of this is the likelihood that there will be some lessening of the definition that the previous rough height provided around the fairways, particularly as growth slows into the winter months.
Naturally, lowering the height at a time where things are growing strongly has created a massive amount of clippings in the roughs, which can prove to be as difficult as the rough itself. We understand the frustration with this, and are employing our debris blowers to deal with the clip as effectively as we can, but unfortunately there was always going to be some disruption until the process is complete and our growth normalizes, which we are beginning to see now.
Richard James
Course Superintendent