TP Tour Comes to Ealing!

Last Monday the TP Tour came to Ealing to play the 2nd London Pairs Tournament. This was held for the first time last year and features up and coming pro's and amateurs, as well as established tour processionals. It was a fourball better ball tournament with 38 pairs playing 18 holes, with the top 6 scores going in to a 4-hole 'shoot out'! Defending Champions James Heath and Adam Gee successfully defended their title. It was good to see as they are both former winners of our Ealing Scratch Open and always good supporters of the golf club.

For the agronomy team it was a good chance for us to show off our golf course. Many long hours went in to this event and the feedback from the players was excellent. The course was well defined and greens were running at 13.25 feet. Our own Course Manager and Director of Golf played as a team. They even complained that the uphill putts seemed fast!

Greens running at 13.25feet

Attention to detail

Even the ducks liked it!

Greenkeeping team hard at it

It was a beautiful day

Chipping Green Project Commences 19th May

Last week it was confirmed that our new chipping green would proceed with construction set to start week commencing the 19th May. Over the last few years it is a project that has gathered pace and we are keen to implement this straight away now that funding has been agreed. The design has been jointly done by Weller Design and our own Pro, Ricky Willison. The area that has been agreed on is the new clearance on the way to the 9th tee. Space is tight with the whole area only totally just over 600m2, but we feel with careful thought and design we will get a top playing surface that we desire!

The project is being managed by our Course Manager Greg Evans and underwritten by our present Captain and immediate past Captain. Because the area is tight and light will be an issue we have decided to install it to full USGA specifications but with a twist! Instead of the industry norm of turf or seed being used we will be 'coring' a couple of our existing greens and using those cores as the seedbed. It is something that we did a couple of years ago with our turf nursery and worked a treat.

The aim is to construct and build mid-May with the cores going down early June. As we plan to open the area for the autumn meeting in September it will give us 3 months to grow in and open to a top standard.  The specification for the area is as follows:

• Green size 296m2
• Surround size 331m2
• Green to be built to full USGA specifications which consists of a 100mm gravel carpet with 300mm of predominately sand sitting on top
• Whole area to be fully irrigated and drained
• 50mm 'sand cap' will be used on the surrounding area, with rye turf
• Path to be widened from 1 to 2metres
• 9th gate to be moved from its existing position 5 metres further up the footpath making the walk from the 8th green to 9th tee straighter

At present we are thinking of adding a small bunker but there are some safety issues attached to this. We will decided once rough shaping has taken place.

It is a small but exciting project for us. As usual it has many challenges but is something that we enjoy. Our aim is to produce a chipping green which is of the same standard as the main greens if not better. We will do update blogs throughout the project. All that we hope for is that the weather is kind!

First Major of the Year - Spring Meeting!

As we approach our first major of the year the course has really taken shape over the last month. This is always a funny time of year for the greenstaff as we are finishing winter snagging jobs whilst getting the course ready for the playing season. In April our cutting regimes intensified with greens going from two to three cuts up to daily. Also other areas such as fairways have increased from once a week to three times. Heights of cuts have come down with greens now cut at our summer height of 2mm. We are getting lots of compliments at the moment which is always nice to hear.

For the weekend the main focus will be on the greens. Instead of just cutting they will be rolled as well. It will increase the speed from a daily stimp meter reading of 11 feet up to 12 or beyond. Smoothness will also increase and having just done a smoothness test we are happy that we have hit our first 10 out of 10 for the season. Pin positions will be a bit tougher and it will certainly feel like a major. It's always nice when the spring meeting comes along as for EGC it signals the start of the playing season!

Spring Drainage Works at EGC

The last two weeks have been very intense at EGC. Last week all the greens,tees,approaches and collars were given their spring renovations. The main focus of the week was aeration and sanding with the greens receiving 40tonnes on their own. This week the intensity went up another level and 380 metres of drainage was installed in to the 15th fairway and snagging areas on the 1st,8th and 11th holes. This is part of our overall drainage programme which is into its second year now. With this work completed we now have 13 fairways and approaches which we consider 'acceptable' in extreme weather. Work is planned to the second fairway in the autumn and in year 4 all fairways should be up to standard.

The pictures below give you an idea of the work which took place. We did 850metres over the week and with the 800metres last autumn, it has been a good winter. The work consisted of turf cutting the turf off, trenching out the drain lines, backfilling with sand, consolidating and finally putting the turf back on. It was a great team effort and once these areas settle down secondary drainage will be installed with a gravel bander.

Marking out the 15th approach

Gully pots going in to the 15th fairway

Turfcutting the areas

Trenching away

Checking levels

Pipe laid

Nice clay sub base in 15th green

Sand backfilled

Finished product

Gully pot installed

Marking out irrigation lines

Turf back on

Trenching across the 15th fairway

We needed some help!

382metres installed in the 15th fairway in 3 days

Marking out the 8th approach

View up the 1st fairway

1st fairway finished

Turf cut off the 8th green

Nice to know the aeration/spiking programme is working!

Typical greenkeepers!

Trench finish on the 8th green

Consolidating the sand

It's not suppose to be enjoyable

8th Approach all finished

Number 10 Downing Street for one of our Greenkeepers!

A couple of weeks ago one of our assistant's Ryan Bezzant visited Downing Street during national apprenticeship week.  Ryan joined us last autumn and enrolled on the NVQ scheme. He was picked by the Greenkeepers Training Committee to represent the industry as one of the government trailblazers organisations.

 

 

Ryan outside Downing Street

The day went really well and Ryan met the Chancellor George Osborne. He commented on the day 'it was a truly memorable occasion and one I will remember for the rest of my life. I now want to focus on my apprenticeship at Ealing and thank the golf club for supporting me'.

AdiZero update

Today, the Course Manager Greg Evans and Director of Golf Ricky Willison met up with Adidas Golf. This was to discuss the issue EGC have with the Adidas Zero golf shoe. For those of you who are unaware let us remind you. We first noticed a problem when one of our members reported back that someone was playing golf with football boots on. This was very noticeable on the greens and after some investigation from our Course Manager (mainly through greenkeeping blogs) we found out that there was an issue with certain types of golf shoes. One in particular (The Adizero tour) was receiving several bad reviews. 

After much deliberation, we decided to put a ban on these shoes until further notice. We published this on our blog in December (http://egcagronomy.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/adidas-zeros-are-not-welcome-at-egc.html) and several other clubs followed suit. This has caused quite a stir amongst the golfing community. Normally our blogs receive between 150 to 200 views. With this one we have nearly reached 4000!

During today's meeting, Adidas were very positive and came armed with their new 'improved' model as well as several others. It also became apparent to us just how much technology goes in to making a golf shoe. The days of just sticking 7 or 8 spikes in a shoe have long gone! Now it is all about pressure points and comfort.

They explained that performance from the 'Golfer to the golf green' is their number one priority. The Course Manager tested the new shoes on the 18th green. What he felt is the new cleat (which is softer and at less of an angle) is a lot more green friendly than the old one, but based on today's conditions these were still deemed unacceptable to the greens. We then tested other models (some of which have yet to be released) and these are a lot more friendly to the turf.

So in conclusion we feel that the adizero's, new & old, are still unacceptable for our greens, but we have been assured that as conditions improve this will change. For the time being, the ban continues but will be monitoring the situation closely.

We would like to thank Adidas for taking the time to come and visit us at Ealing and we were delighted to hear that they take this subject very seriously. We would also like to clarify that we have no issue with any other Adidas shoes. In fact, we would like to state that we would take a similar stance with any shoe that is seen to cause damage to our greens, irrespective of make. 

The River Has Burst Its Banks

Unfortunately the river decided to burst its banks this morning. After all the rainfall that we have had over the past two months it is not surprising to see the river level topple over the edge. To date we feel that we have been quite lucky. With all this record rainfall it has only come over 3 times, which compared to other parts of the country is more than acceptable. Our drainage in these areas have been updated over the years. So once the river level drops it will go back in quite nicely. For instance on Saturday it came over but by Sunday we had all 18 holes open.

The clear up as you can image can be quite hard and messy. The worst is when we have silt being deposited on the golf course but this only happens in extreme cases. On average the river bursts it's banks 5 to 6 times per year. As it has already gone over twice this year we have had 33% disruption so far. You've always got to look on the bright side!

View to the 18th Tee

Big carry today to the 12th fairway

12th Tee is an island!

17th Fairway looks a bit wet:(