Drainage Project Commences!

Today we start work on draining the fairways on holes 1,2,7,8 and 12. It will be an intense and disruptive period but at the end of it we are sure it will be worth it. Water control on a golf course is critical in producing successful playing surfaces. When it's hot (like we had this summer) getting them irrigated with a good efficient watering system is crucial to keep turf healthy. In 2006 we upgraded our system to allow us to do so. However when the weather turns nasty and wet, then getting water away from site becomes a priority. This is where a good drainage system comes in. Unfortunately our system is old and in urgent need of replacing.

Drainage Project - Phase 2

Last winter we commenced phase 1 of our drainage project. The aim over the coming years is to completely renew our system and make the golf course as good in the winter as the summer. We installed several hundred meters of pipework last year on the river holes 3,4,15 and 17. A couple of weeks ago the river did burst its banks and this is where we saw the benefit of the renewed drainage system. Instead of the course being shut for a number of days, 15 holes were open one day after and all 18 the following day to a good standard.

Loch Lomond 10th Fairway

In preparation for the coming works, a couple of weeks ago the Course Manager, Deputy and Mechanic took a trip up to Loch Lomond in Scotland to see how they drained their golf course. It was an impressive trip and many things were learnt that we will be implementing down here at our site. Loch Lomond Golf Course is a very challenging site and they have treble the amount of rainfall that we have here at Ealing. Like us they did the work in house and over a number of years. It was on a much bigger scale but the interesting thing that we took out of it was that it's never ending. On the day of the visit, and even though the whole golf course had been completely drained, they were aerating and sanding a fairway to improve the drainage there!

We will be doing regular blogs over the coming weeks to let you see how progress is going. To be kept informed, please submit your email address on the icon to the right.

The River Decided To Burst Its Banks!

Unfortunately last Saturday the river decided to burst its banks. As the river Brent flows through the middle of the golf course it comes in to play on 9 holes. It is a huge feature of our golf course, but the downside to this is that in the 1960's the river authorities installed a dam downstream to stop Greenford Town flooding. On average it floods five times a year and because it has been a dry year so far it is the first time it has flooded. The damage that it leaves behind varies from minor to heavy. We would say that this one was on the heavy side so we had to close the course for Saturday's play.

Once the river level dropped below the drainage pipes, the water went back very quickly. This drainage was updated last winter and instead of the course being closed for a number of days, 15 holes were open on the Sunday and the full 18 by the Monday. A great effort was put in by the greenstaff and looking at the course today you would hardly noticed what had happened. The pictures below will give you an idea of the devistation and the clear up operation undertaken by the staff. The greens and tees were absolutely fine. It was getting to them that was the problem!

4th Lefthand Bunker

Looks quite impressive at that height

4th Fairway

12th Hole

Debris on the 10th green

View down the 17th fairway

15th Fairway

10th Bunker

15th Bunker

15th Drain working well

Blower working to clear the debris

1st thing Sunday we are all out there!

Scrapping off the top layer of silt

Bunker back in play

Greens still look great!

Back to normal

We all needed cheering up then:)

South East Girls and Golf Week

Cutting the 2nd green in the dark at 4.45am

For the past two weeks Ealing has hosted two big events. First up was the South East Girls Championship where girls from Kent, Sussex, Middlesex, Essex and Surrey battled it out for 3 days. Kent came out on top and reports back from all competitors was very positive. Next up was our second annual golf week. It started off with Invitation day and contained the Club Championship, Pro and Am-Am, Junior and Scratch Open and finished off with the Generation Bowl yesterday. Again the reports back from all those who played during the week was great.

A lot of hard work and hours has been put in by the Greenstaff over the last two weeks. Some very early starts were needed to get ahead of the golf and present the course for the days play. The weather in general was very kind and the only hicup was last weekend when we had some flooding. The course played very well. Green speeds were maintained at 12 feet for all of the events and went up to 13.5 feet for the Pro-Am.  All in all a very satifying period. It's always good to see the course perform at its best and we look forward to hosting future events soon.

Mid-Season Greens Renovations

After a busy few months we completed our mid-season greens renovations works this week. Once the Seniors Open was completed on Monday, the week started with a verti-cut Tuesday morning with a micro tine following behind. Unfortunately the weather wasn't kind to us on Tuesday and after heavy downpours, six greens were still to be completed mid-morning. Once the weather improved in the early evening the Greenstaff reconvened the renovation and completed the verti-cut operation and spiked five more greens. With the weather improving on Wednesday, the rest of the greens were micro-tined and 15 tonnes of sand was applied to all greens. A wetting agent was then applied to the greens and 10 tonnes of sand spread on the approaches. A tough couple of days.

Miro spiking with 8mm cluster tines

Many members ask why we do this work in the mid-playing season. There is one main reason for this and it is recovery. At this time of year getting the greens back in play very quick is important when you have a busy golfing diary. Because temperatures are in double figures night and day, growth can be boosted at this time of year. If you look at the picture below you will see the 9th green two days after the work was competed on Friday afternoon. That green was still stimping over 10feet and smoothness was 9 out of 10. Not bad considering two days previous we were 'digging the greens up' in some golfers eyes!

15 tonnes of sand applied

9th Green two days after

1st Hole Carry Extension

As the weather has got hot it has shown up some weak areas around the course in terms of dryness. When the irrigation system was installed in 2006, the design was based around greens,tees,fairways and approaches. This has meant that certain areas such as surrounds and walk off areas suffer when extreme hot weather comes our way. Every system designed on paper will never be fully acceptable when out on the field. Tweaking of the system has to take place to make sure it's functional for the golf course. Over the years we have been installing surround sprinklers and so far holes 3,8,9,12,14 and 18 have had them installed. We have done this all in house and helps walk off areas for the summer months.

This week we installed a extension to the 1st hole carry. Right in front of the 1st tee there was a slight weak area. It was only around 20metres long but would burnout and look poor right in front of the 1st tee. Steve our new Deputy got on with the job of bringing the existing pipework and cable back to the 1st tee and turning it towards the putting green. It took three days to complete and is now fully automatic so sits in with the rest of the sprinkler programmes. It will improve the turf quality in this area and make our 'first impressions' acceptable in the summer!

Poor turf quality in front of the 1st tee

Marking out the sprinkler positions

Trencher digs out the pipeline

Soak-a-hose watering the turf

Turf relaid

New sprinkler installed on the 8th walkway

Nice clean job

All finished in 3 days

Water Management At Ealing Golf Club

Miro hand watering any dry areas on the 5th green

At last we seem to have a summer that isn't raining and we have long glorious days, with some heat included too:) This is great for the golf course as it is busy with golfers but puts huge pressure on the water management side of things and especially greens moisture. Over the last decade we have invested in water management tools at Ealing. In 2006 the club invested nearly £300k on a new fully automatic watering system. Playing surfaces such as greens, tees and fairways had a system installed that would allow the greenstaff to maintain good playing surfaces during dry, hot periods. However, an irrigation system is a tool and needs to be managed correctly as misuse will have the opposite affect on playing surfaces. Along with this we have invested in scientific tools such as a weather station and portable moisture probe. These tools along with the irrigation system allows us to set up a water balance sheet so that when we have to use the automatic sprinklers, we water correctly so that plant uptake is maximised and wastage reduced.

If you look at the image above you will see our current water balance sheet. It is basically a profit and loss spreadsheet with ET (evpotranspiration) as the loss and irrigation/precipitation as the profit.You will notice two things. The first is the high moisture loss that we are currently experiencing and second, the amount (or lack of) rainfall for the month. You will also probably gauge that that when we irrigate we don't replace by 100% of the loss on that day. It is roughly around a 60% figure. The reason for this is that it can take around 16 hours to lose say 4.2mm of moisture that we lost yesterday, but to add back just 2mm, roughly 4 minutes by the pop up sprinklers. Completely different rates. So to get the moisture levels right it is where hand watering and a new technology called 'VWC' or volumetric water content (last column on the right) comes in to allow us to be in complete control.

VWC is a fairly new technology which came out around 10 years ago for the turf market. It measures electrical resistance between two probes and converts it in to a percentage reading giving you the water content for that area. Two years ago we invested in a portable soil moisture probe, which along with our water balance sheet allows us to be in total control of our moisture levels on the greens. When it doesn't rain of course!. During hot periods such as this, we go out and measure the VWC for each green and then adjusted the run times for the sprinklers accordantly. So today we measured all the greens and found some such as the 11th green were too wet and that green will not be watered tonight. Our bench mark figure for these clay based push up greens is around 30%. We find when we go below that figure the water repels and they can become hydrophobic. So with the current weather, when we are losing between 4 and 5mm of moisture per day, we set the default VWC at around 35% first thing in the morning. So by the end of the day they will lose around 4 to 5% VWC and come down to around that 30% mark. This means that during the afternoon (when historically they have dried out and crusted up), playability is not affected and they play as good then as they do first thing.

Modern valving head sprinklers

They have around a 20m throw and apply evenly across the surface

Weather station giving daily ET and rainfall figures

Soil moisture probe giving instant readings

Digging the greens up!

This week we have carried out some minor maintenance to the greens at Ealing. In the past this has been seen as 'digging the greens up' in some people eyes, but with today's techniques and machinery disturbance can be minimal. The week started on Monday with a light aeration which was followed with 5 tonnes of sand. A brush then followed behind dragging the sand in to the holes and once dried, Mitchel went out and vibro rolled the greens. The next day a wetting agent (which takes the surface tension out of water droplets) was applied and watered in. Today we have just done a speed and smoothness test to the second green and ball roll is 10 out of 10 and speed is 11 feet. So long gone are the days when you dig the greens up and putting performance is affected for weeks on end!

Spiking first thing Monday

Stan applying 5tonnes of sand

Sand on surface

Sand being brushed in to the holes

Green half brushed

Mitch vibro-rolling the greens

Wetting agent being watered in

Greens Friday morning

Smoothness 10/10 and speed 11