Dry Week

Finally a dry week, and as I sit and write this, a dry Saturday morning, hopefully this will continue for some time to come.

With the wet weather comes all of the problems associated with it, such as water in bunkers and soggy parts of the course. Although we have rebuilt quite a few bunkers over the past couple of years, we still have plenty that don't drain as well as they could. Of the 70 odd bunkers we have, there are about 20 that don't drain within a day or two, which is not quick enough, we have a bunker pump which empties a bunker very quickly, but doesn't help on a Saturday morning.

With all of the wet weather last year, we have devised a plan to rebuild all of the bunkers that drain poorly over the next three years. They will be done in six lots, with two lots per year to spread the cost, workload and disruption to play. I will be surprised if a few more don't pop up in this time, but they will also be addressed as we work through them all.

As with the new bunkers, our new drainage works on the 3rd/2nd/1st had proven itself to be working very well, the area at the bottom of the hill on the 2nd has stayed dry and continued to be playable through all of the storms we have experienced so far. The final part of the works for this project is the area just short of the silt trap on the left hand side of the first hole. This has been G.U.R for quite some time as we stockpiled soil. This are has been a mess for a few years now, an inherited mess from the roadworks and subsequent drainage works carried out. We plan to fill this area and shape it so the water from inside the course can get to the silt trap quickly, and so the water on the roadside, stays on the road side. We plan to complete this area within the coming weeks.

Our fairway re-grassing will commence next week on the fifth hole, as you can all see from the difference between the left and right hand side, it is well worth the few weeks of inconvenience. The area on the right will be prepared and grassed by Tuesday and therefore the area will be G.U.R and roped off.

Back to bunkers, you all would have seen the top ups we carried out last month on many of the bunkers around the course, late this week, or early next week, we plan to continue with some more top ups. These bunkers are the ones that have very little sand in the base, but drain very well, obviously we will not be filling bunker that have drainage issues.

Happy Golfing

Stewart Poole

Welcome to Summer!

It seems like it has only been warm enough to take off the jumpers for a week or two, yet the storms have already started.

The past two Saturdays mornings have seen us hit buy storms dumping an inch of rain each time, and at the same time ruining all of the hard work the staff had put into the course the previous week. Just to make things worse, last Saturday if the morning storm wasn't bad enough, we got hit again in the afternoon.

We have fertilised the greens this week, so expect the greens to be a bit slower this weekend, it should only be for the week until we get them back under control.

Happy golfing and lets hope for better weather.

Stewart Poole

Spring has sprung

I have been very slack in my blogging over the past few months, but I plan to post something every Friday to keep everybody up to date.

Spring, it is a great time to be alive, the mornings are still fresh and the days are beautiful. We enter the growing season this year in better shape than any other year, all of the surfaces are in great condition and ready to go for the busy season ahead.

Over the next few weeks we plan to finish our fairway re-grassing, with only the right hand side of the fifth and a small portion of the second to go, we hope to have these completed by the end of October.

With the help of a few volunteers we have a few new gardens around the course, and the majority of the old gardens tidied up. We also have someone who has taken it upon himself to fill the divots others are too lazy to do so themselves. If any of you want to help out on or around the course, please feel free to contact me, if it is a one off hour or 10 hours a week, all offers will be accepted.

We are slowly but surely restricting our cart traffic wear to certain areas around the course. We will never stop the wear, (not with cart paths tee to green), but if we can move the wear to areas that has little impact to play, then we have had a small win.

Happy Golfing,

Stewart Poole

Storms

It has been a frustrating week, up until Tuesday the weather had been perfect, the greens, tees, fairways and surrounds were cut, the bunkers raked and the roughs almost finished, then came the storms. Tuesday afternoon we were hit by a massive storm that literally tore the course apart. Large gums were uprooted and large branches littered the course, it looked like a cyclone had been through. Then Wednesday night we received another smaller storm taking the two night total to 48mm of rain.

The Tuesday night storm was the third bad storm that has hit Gailes in the past five weeks causing flooding across the first, fifteenth and sixteenth. These storms also wash out our bunkers and fill them with dirty water. We had planned, and were on track to have the course in great shape for Opening Day on Saturday, but as it stands we hope to just get close.

Floods

I would like to take this opportunity to send my best wishes to all those affected by the floods, I do know that quite a few members have had their homes inundated and will need to be almost totally re-built and many more with slight damage. All of our staff were also affected in some way, either directly or by family and friends.

The events of the past week or so really show how we take our care free lives for granted, such as playing golf and turning on a light switch in your clean lounge room full of furniture or knowing for sure all of your family is alive and well.

There are many golf clubs and other sporting clubs that have been badly damaged, some will find it hard to recover, others will steel their resolve and become stronger. All of our closest golf neighbours have been hardest hit with most losing pumps, machinery and other infastructure.

My thoughts and prayers are with everybody affected directly or indirectly, members or not. If there is anything myself or my staff can possibly do, please do not hesitate to ask.

Stewart Poole
Golf Course Superintendent

New Year

Happy New Year,
I hope this message finds you all high and dry and unaffected by the recent floods. Although the footage we have seen on the television have been terrible, Gailes has been relativly unscathed. So if you are looking for a game, we are open for business. The course isn't perfect but will get better with every fine day that passes.