We have had a number of members enquire recently regarding Winter Rules:

Dear Members,

as you will probably have heard the Chancellor recently increased the alcohol duty rates by 3.9%.  Our suppliers have also incurred significant additional raw material costs which they have chosen to pass on to the trade. We have received price increases of 5% plus from all of our suppliers.

The impact on prices at PRGC for members is as follows:

Ales Prices

PRGC have held Brakspear and Rebellion IPA prices at £3.40 and £3.60 respectively

Wine and Spirits

PRGC have held prices on Wines and Spirits for now, pending final negotiations

Lager and Cider

The price of Stella 4 has gone up from £3.30 to £3.40 (+3%). This increase will be effective from Friday 17th March, 2017. All other prices are held pending further negotiations.

Rest assured that we are doing all that we can to keep quality as high as possible and prices as low as possible.

Good morning ladies.  The weather is definitely living up to its March billing of 'in like a lion' - let's hope that it's true to the old saying and goes 'out like a lamb'.  That said we were extraordinarily lucky with the weather last Wednesday when we celebrated St David's Day with all sorts of Welsh themes and what I understand was a most enjoyable game of Rough Justice.  Thanks to you all for embracing my determination to see daffodils and leeks everywhere - I hope you had as much fun as I did - and thanks to Team PRGC for their support.  For the record, there is a piece on the club website with some photographic evidence of the event - take a look under the New News section halfway down the home page.  www.princesrisboroughgolfclub.co.uk

Below you will find information about the various activities that we have planned over the coming month and some other points of interest.  Please take a moment to read through to the end and get back to me if you'd like further details.

ST DAVID'S DAY 
Our Ladies Section acknowledged the arrival of March this week by celebrating St David's Day.  The clubhouse was adorned with Welsh bunting, daffodils and leeks, and out on the course the ladies played Rough Justice - penalised if they ventured off the fairways en route to the greens.  For once this year the weather was glorious and everyone had a splendid morning.  Back in the clubhouse the theme continued over lunch with delicious leek and potato soup on offer followed by Welsh cakes

The ladies had also been asked to take the St David's Day theme out on to the course with them - Jacqui and Beryl looked particularly smart in their Welsh hats!  

We understand that it is incredibly frustrating to turn up to the golf course, only to discover, in layman's terms, that the green is full of little holes or covered in sand. So we thought that you were owed some simple answers. This post will quickly explain why we aerate and top dress the greens with sand, what different solutions we use and whether you get 'relief' or not if your putt is disrupted.

When you consider that golf greens are generally only about 1% of the total area of the golf course, yet 50% of the game is played on them - we understand their importance to you and the intention of this post is to explain that unless we maintain the greens properly, we will eventually kill them. In short, we apologise for the short term disruption, but it is necessary if you want to maximise your enjoyment of the game across the whole season.

Our main greens enjoy a healthy combination of what are known as soil solids (minerals and organic material) and soil pores (space for water and air). This combination provides a healthy rootzone and ultimately healthy grass.

This successful combination is disrupted over time by one of two challenges; one is through an unhealthy imbalance of solids and the other through a reduction in soil pores through compaction.
If not managed appropriately, these can adversely affect the performance of the green in many ways, such as ball bounce, ball roll, reduced ball speed and in the long term, damage the soil structure, which may lead to expensive reconstruction costs and avoidable player down time.

Let's take compaction first.

Why do we aerate the greens?

Essentially high volumes of people treading on the greens will reduce the soil pores and eventually damage the health of the grass. We are blessed with a course with natural chalk and shale drainage. Whilst compaction problems occur on all courses, those with heavier soil bases such as clay tend to suffer much worse. So we are luckier than most, but our greens do still require relief from compaction.

Maintaining the correct balance of the soil solids is critical for sustaining healthy plant growth. The spaces between the particles of solid material however are just as important. It is in these pore spaces which create the environment for the plant to obtain the necessary water, air and nutrients it requires to drink, breathe and grow.

And what about healthy soil?

Why do we top dress the greens?

In short, our agronomists point to the 15 year study by Nebraska University and have made clear to us that getting sand into the root zone is critical to dilute the amount of organic matter that accumulates in the soil. Organic matter comes from dead roots and shoots, and is increased by the amount of fertilizer and water used. A green that has excess organic matter is soft and spongy, doesn't drain well, shows visible foot prints from golfer foot traffic, and is not a good putting surface.

How do we aerate?

The main aim of aeration is to penetrate the soil profile to create new pore space and we use two primary methods.

Hollow Coring

we have just hollow cored the new Short Game Academy Course greens. We did this because we wanted to both aerate the soil and change the soil composition to create an accelerated growth environment for new seeds. For the main greens we have invested in new grooming equipment to manage our thatch depth and the agronomist currently advises that we do not need to hollow core as a thatch removal mechanism.

Solid Tining

The problem with hollow coring is that it is very disruptive to play. Solid tining heals much faster. It works by using varying depths and diameters of tines to puncture holes in the root zone. During the spring we are using quick healing pencil tines to open up the pores and encourage health. Later in the season, depending on soil health, we will consider using deeper tines with a shatter action - but for now we are in good shape.

NB This year we will also be testing Aero Quick, a brilliant combination of 'slitting' and 'solid tining' which penetrates 6 inches through the thatch with minimum disruption to play - watch this space!!

When do we aerate?

Aeration should be carried out on a regular basis, when weather and soil conditions allow. It ties in with our other seasonal renovation programmes, such as dethatching (or grooming) and topdressing which we complete in the spring and autumn.

Summary of key benefits of Aeration?

* Improves soil surface drainage (water infiltration)
* Helps to increase soil temperatures
* Increases soil pore space - allows gaseous exchanges in the soil (oxygen in, carbon dioxide out) that improves root growth and development
* Aids integration of topdressings into the soil profile
* Aids the breakdown of thatch/organic matter
* Promotes better surface levels that will increase ball roll /speed
* Aids surface firmness/dryness, thereby increasing ball bounce and surface grip

We strongly believe that these benefits are worthy of a short spell of disruption and hope that this note helps to relieve some of the frustration you may feel when your game is impacted by this essential maintenance work.

What About Those Aeration Holes - Do You Get Relief?

Those aeration holes may be around for a couple weeks. If your golf ball comes to rest on an aeration hole, what's the ruling? Can I get relief? The answer is NO. Aeration holes do not qualify as an abnormal ground condition, because the governing bodies specifically say they do not qualify as "ground under repair".

Hope this is helpful

John
Head Greenkeeper

As many of you will know, we have been investing a considerable amount of resource over the autumn and winter months in developing the new Short Game Academy Course.

In addition to employing three greenkeepers rather than two, we now have the ability to cut both sets of greens simultaneously.  Our new cutting cassettes are ready and waiting for action!

We have also been investing in a green development programme which has involved a number of important steps:

Levelling the greens

Carefully removing the lumps and bumps which would create problems for golfers and the mowers. This is an ongoing and time consuming process

Removing weeds

Following the use of a variety of weed killers; last week we applied T2 Green Pro. This is a premium selective herbicide for the control of a wide range of weeds, including difficult perennial weeds.

Accelerating Grass Growth

Last week we applied pigment to the greens to improve the health and accelerate growth of the natural grasses present.

As winter turns to spring (give or take the odd Storm Doris) we move to the next critical phase:

Soil Aeration

This week we will be hollow coring the academy greens to create the ideal basis for turf health and ultimately a high quality playing surface. We are effectively reconstructing the soil composition and enabling a high quality rooting system for the new grass. As we are blessed with a high quality chalk and shale natural drainage system, this new rooting system will have every advantage.

Soil Reconstruction - Top Dressing and Seeding

Having removed the 'plugs' or 'cores' from the greens we will top dress with a high quality 70/30 mix of sand/soil. The newly created root zone will be fertilised and seeded to ensure that we achieve a rapid transition during the early spring growing season. We will continue to top dress on an increasingly light basis throughout the first season - between 4 and 6 times. The soil recomposition will be fairly rapid and with little existing thatch or compaction, healthy grass growth has every chance of success.

We will keep you posted...

John
Head Greenkeeper