Winter Green Work

[Robster59]

The greens team have been putting in new drains on two of our greens this week and have been sharing them on Twitter and Facebook.
Today they posted on Facebook a start to finish set of photos. I found it fascinating viewing so thought I'd share it on here in case anyone was interested.

https://www.facebook.com/149281171777099/posts/2590415550996970

Our new head Head Greenkeeper has really impressed in his first year in the job.

 

[Jacko_G]

Saw this on FB. Great to see proactive hardworking staff. Makes a huge difference.

👍

 

[upsidedown]

Also saw it and shared , top work they've been doing all year

 

[MartynB]

Very impressive to see such skilled workmanship.

 

[Robster59]

An interesting little update on this. It poured down on Saturday night/Sunday morning and the course was closed after about 30mm of rain. They posted photos of some of the greens on facebook and the two with no puddles were....
Yup, 3rd and 13th. It's nice to know it worked so well as these two were particularly prone to flooding.

 

[Deleted member 15344]

Do you know if it’s rope drainage ? Fibre glass ropes layed across the greens ? Takes about half a day to do a green ?

We did about 8 of our worst greens and the results are superb - seems it’s getting very popular to use now

 

[IanM]

They've done same at our place over past few years .

Takes a little while before the lines cease to visible, but crikey the drainage has improved.

 

[Biggleswade Blue]

I really enjoy seeing Greenkeepers blogs - short but regular updates as to what they are doing and why. These people work really hard, and most of barely see what they do, but we enjoy the benefits of it.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

Good to see quality work and no doubt the OP will see a real difference to the quality of the greens. I think Addington were laying the rope drainage system onto the practice green when we were there and very interesting to see them doing it

 

[Grant85]

Been good to see and I think with the way the last year has gone there will not be too much moaning or grumbling from members about these greens likely being out of play now until the spring. The new course manager obviously knows his stuff.

The course is fairly high up so quite conceivable that they could lose a month or two with a few flurries of snow and no doubt this influenced their decision to crack on.

And with the new drainage works being so effective, this could be a game changer for a lot of inland courses that have had problems with drainage. No doubt a lot of these have been really struggling now that we seem to get a lot more periods of extended wet / tropical weather. Obviously it requires the investment, but hopefully the products now available are far more effective and workable than the old ceramic pipes backfilled with gravel that will be buried under many greens and fairways across the country.

 

[Leftie]

New deep drainage was installed in 2015 and 2016 to our West course. This winter sees similar work, together with new and refurb work to bunkers on the back on the East course.
Rather disruptive and a brave decision by greens staff and committee. It looks drastic but it works.