After cold mornings and minimal rainfall, work on greens, fairways, bunkers and practice areas is in full swing. The head greenkeeper gives us a status of the course now and over the next few weeks.
April has said goodbye, and May is knocking.
The weather station at the greenkeeper's farm must be a bit confused by now. Early mornings with frost, afternoons with 17 degrees and precipitation, which has hardly happened since the end of March. The last course status was with snow on the course and water that could not get off the surface – and now, a few weeks later, the first dry period of the season has announced its arrival.
Course condition
Since the previous course status, the greenkeeper team has spent many hours becoming more skilled. More skilled at understanding our irrigation software, more skilled at utilizing our irrigation capacity better, and learning to integrate our measurements with the strategy we believe in.
It should be quickly mentioned that the strategy is not rock-solid fast greens – but over the next few weeks there may be days when you as a player may experience it like that. Unfortunately, the implementation is not just a “start/stop” button. To get to know the greens, irrigation software and measurements, we will need to find the limits for both under- and over-watering, as well as how the individual greens hold the water we add.
It's a relatively complex learning process, but when we succeed, it becomes really good – and we don't stop improving our skills.
Next, the fairways were fertilized in the spring by an external contractor with GPS-controlled application (measurement of area and distribution of quantity). The fairways have also been reseeded and top-dressed.
But why isn't anything happening?
In the past 14 days, we have had frost in the early morning hours six times in Dyrehaven, and since April 1st we have measured 13.8 mm of precipitation. Two very important factors when talking about grass establishment and fertilizer utilization. Fortunately, the forecasts show that the cold nights will gradually become warmer – and so the night precipitation is just as welcome.
Renovation of bunkers in progress
As many may have already seen and noticed, an opportunity arose to renovate three greenside bunkers. It was great teamwork from the highest level – and here too we are waiting for the warm weather so that the turf can take hold properly.
We water daily and open these bunkers for play as quickly as is possible and technically sound.
Driving range and putting green
Although we greenkeepers would love to be able to keep it closed for a little longer, we have decided to open it for use from Monday, May 4. Unfortunately, the low temperatures have also challenged our reseeding here, and the area is not quite as dense as we had hoped to present to you.
As a new feature this year, the driving range will be closed due to maintenance:
11:30-12:00 on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays
10:30-11:00 on Fridays
We will try to collect as many balls as possible during the same time period. Therefore, use the waiting time to practice putting, chipping, bunker shots – or perhaps grab a cup of coffee on the terrace in the restaurant.
During Company Days or other large events, times may differ.
We hope for your understanding of the change and are sure that you will quickly get used to the new routine. We will keep you informed of the times and keep reminding you of this.
In addition, we would like to kindly ask you to follow the club's rules of conduct, keep the area neat and help remind each other if you forget.
What is going to happen?
Some exciting weeks are ahead.
At the beginning of May, we will have the club's two newly purchased TORO robots installed. We are very excited, and they will significantly improve the practice areas, short game, par 3 and holes 1 and 18. There will be a running-in phase where we will get to know their behavior and capacity utilization. They will become our helpful "friends".
Later in May, the club's first fully electric greens mower will arrive. It will be a new world in many ways – an almost silent mower with many greenskeeper technical advantages, which we are very excited to get started.
At the same time, we also expect delivery of our new aeration/quick dots – a machine that many will be familiar with, but which we will use significantly more in the future on the field.
As soon as it is delivered, we will start reseeding, aerating and topdressing the greens, green areas and tees. We do this, among other things, to prevent the surface from becoming too hard, improve water distribution in the growing layer and, not least, to heal the winter damage that can still be seen on the greens – which otherwise perform very well out there. 😉
More information will be provided as we get closer to the task.
Week 19
The week begins with vertical cutting of the greens and subsequent top dressing with a light, fine layer of white sand. This will not have a negative effect on the roll of the balls on the green.
That was all from the greenkeeper farm for this time.
See you out there – and remember to take care of each other, our lovely course and not least the deer at the zoo.
Kind regards
Nicolai Klithammer Larsen
Head greenkeeper
