Gailes Golf Club Course Maintenance

More rain

2012-02-24T17:29:00.000+10:00

As I sit and write this on Friday afternoon, it is raining quite steadily and the forecast is not looking to good either. The weather bureau is predicting 100-150mm of rain overnight and into the morning, which doesn't bode well for the final round of the Bobby Locke medal.

The rain coming today is quite a shame as the course was looking really good after a busy weeks work, the bunkers were all dry and raked, the rough is cut and the fairways were, as usual, excellent. We had a little bit of rain earlier in the week, but it came at a good time as I was on the verge of irrigating anyway.

We have moved the old bunker sand from the 11th flight area this week and spread it across some flight areas and path run offs, this should make traveling on a cart a bit smoother, and over time, look much better as well. Although the course will probably be wet, I hope everyone enjoys their game on the weekend.

Happy Golfing,
Stewart Poole

Wednesday Storms

2012-02-10T14:54:00.001+10:00

After a good 10 days of sunlight and drying weather, we were hit with a very nasty storm. I was fortunate enough to be out playing in the Wednesday comp this week when at about 3.30pm a massive storm swept over most of Brisbane. Within 20 mins we received 37mm, (an inch and a half) the rain was as heavy as I have seen any where. The water was flowing across the road on the first and level was about a foot above the dam the whole way across to the main dam.

The majority of the course handled the rain very well, although the bunkers were again trashed, many full of water and the majority were washed out. although this is good to settle the new sand, it is a massive amount of work for the groundstaff. All of the bunker bar 2 are back in play, so the weekend should be as per normal.

Happy Golfing
Stewart Poole

2012-02-03T18:51:00.000+10:00

Finally a respite from the poor weather, over the week of rain we had just short of 300mm or a foot in the old money. This being considered, the course as of today is in very good shape. The entire course has been cut, and in some cases, several times, all of the bunkers are in play and there is very little water laying around.

The committee decided to allow motorised carts on the course on Wednesday, and I can say it was quite a success, there was not damage and very little in the way of wheel marks anywhere. This weekend carts are allowed through the course, but hopefully everybody will still use common sense and stay away from any wet or boggy areas.

Those of you that played last weekend and Wednesday will also be happy to know the greens are back to a more decent speed this week. The growth of the grass plays a very big part in green speed, normally we will take 1-2 catcher loads of grass off the 18 holes, last week at its peak we were taking 9-10 catchers loads. As you can imagine, this will slow the greens dramatically. As of Friday, we are back very close to where we want to be.

Good Golfing,

Stewart Poole

Rain, rain and more rain

2012-01-28T06:54:00.000+10:00

It has been a very difficult week for us with well over 200mm recorded since Sunday. The bulk of the rain came Tuesday and Wednesday this week, but continual showers amounting to half and inch at least per day has made life hard.

The first round of the Bobby Locke has been postponed until next weekend. The main reason for this was the course just simply isn't up to hosting one of our premier events. The course could not take buggies this weekend either, meaning people that need carts to play the course would have to miss out on the final three rounds.

As of Friday the 27th of January we had the course cut, raked and rolled ready for play, but the 15mm we had overnight made honour board golf not possible for today.

All we can do is hope for better conditions next week and get back to playing golf.

Stewart Poole

Dry Week

2011-10-22T09:37:00.000+10:00

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!

2011-10-17T20:09:00.000+10:00

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

2011-09-23T11:29:00.000+10:00

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

2011-01-20T12:36:00.000+10:00

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

2011-01-17T19:01:00.000+10:00

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

2011-01-13T19:35:00.000+10:00

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.

Wet Christmas

2010-12-29T08:58:00.006+10:00

Well, that was a very wet Christmas. Here at the course we had just under 200mm of rain for the four days, and just to add insult to injury we had a mini cyclone through on Monday. As of the 29th of this month, we have had a touch over 500mm of rain for the month of December. As you can see from the photos, we have a bit of a mess to clean up.

As I am writing this, we have 40-50 members playing their Wednesday comp as per normal, and I suspect that number will rise throughout the day.

It is said and written, Gailes is one of, if not, the best wet weather course in Brisbane, so with a bit of fine weather like today, it won't be long before we are back to our finest.

Good Golfing into the New Year.

Course Condition

2010-12-10T16:00:00.000+10:00

With just under 200mm of rain falling on the course over two weeks, it has been very hard work presenting the course to the very high standard we have been used to providing in recent times. At the time of this post, the course is just about fully dry and looking really good.

Our re-grassing has enjoyed the rain and the grass has taken very well on the 2nd, 5th and 13th fairways.

The second blue marker tee was levelled and re turfed this week, it should be back into play within a few weeks. Until it is back into play we will be using the bottom tee, which some of you will be very happy about I am sure.

I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and hope to see evryone out and about in the new year.

Traffic Wear

2010-11-18T19:57:00.000+10:00

I often get asked why we need so many bollards, chains and hoops around the course, quite simply have a look at the photograph above and see how much wear occurs in a short period of time. These bollards were extended four days before this photo was taken and look how quickly a path is created. This is why it is so important for carts to stay on designated paths.

Update on 15th Bunkers

2010-11-04T20:22:00.000+10:00

We started filling the bunkers on the 15th today, and they look fantastic. Half way through we got 13mm of rain, not a drop stayed in them, 14mm more in 30 mins and still no water staying in them. After these three we hope to do a few more of the worst bunkers sooner than later. Weather permitting the bunkers should be back into play for the monthly medal this weekend.

Summer Weed Control and New Grass

2010-10-28T20:11:00.000+10:00

Over the coming weeks will be spraying out all of the left over weeds from Winter. You will notice some areas looking quite burnt off, don't worry, the first application usually reacts the worst and only lasts a week or two.

Our re grassing of fairways commences for the season next week, we only have a few areas to do, so weather permitting we will be finished by Christmas.

Bunkers on the 15th

2010-10-27T06:50:00.001+10:00

The three green side bunkers on the 15th are now being re-built. The drainage has been almost non-existent over the past few years and the sand was getting quite hard. Like all of the bunkers we have re-built recently, these will drain well and receive much less damage after heavy rains and storms.

New Turf

2010-10-21T20:24:00.000+10:00

As you will all notice, we have turfed out the old path between the 4th green and the 5th tee. We have placed hoops along this turf to prevent too much traffic in this area whilst the grass takes.

Welcome

2010-10-21T18:18:00.000+10:00

Welcome to the new blogspot for Course maintenance at Gailes Golf Club. Bear with us as we arrange things to our taste but check here regularly to keep up to date with what is going on around the course. Enjoy.