Many major maintenance tasks are in full swing on the course. Late summer and early autumn are a good time to reseed with grass and aerate and topdress our playing areas. The work must be fitted into a still busy course with matches and events and rain has also fallen. We have taken advantage of the intermittently fine September weather to topdress and aerate our large green surroundings and par 3 course and the grass is now sprouting after just two weeks. The greens were done this summer.
Major work on the golf course in October:
Week 40: Fairways are being worked on. Topdressing, fertilizing and reseeding are being done. This is extensive work and we will be assisted by a contractor. Expect machinery to be on the fairways most days, especially Monday through Thursday, and golf play will be greatly affected. The machinery has priority.
Week 41: Construction of the short game area on the par 3 course begins. The par 3 course will be closed from October 11 to
Week 42: The construction phase of the short game area is completed and the entire area is fenced in.
Autumn has begun. On the course, this means that the mornings for the greenkeepers have become darker. The sun is rising later and later and the greenkeepers are starting to work with headlamps and floodlights. We are already spending a lot of time blowing away leaves, repairing damage from deer and birds.
The deer become much more active in the fall. The rutting season has started and the daylight is dwindling. It is increasingly becoming their territory. We notice this on the field when injuries from fights become more frequent and larger. Then we have to go out with seeds and sand and patch the turf after them, but the healing is slower now because the growth is slowing down.
The same applies to damage caused by birds. These are corvids that search for larvae. The larvae feed on grass roots and are now almost right up to the surface, eating grass roots. Larger yellow stains on the course may be due to the fact that there are many larvae underneath. They soon burrow into the ground and pupate. The larvae are a delight to the crows, but they do not eat well. Turf is torn up and lies haphazardly on the grass, and the crows are very diligent. We have experienced the damage to our turf in autumn and winter for many years now, without the extent becoming catastrophic. Unfortunately, this trend is seen on several golf courses with sandier soils, where large areas are destroyed.
The hunting season started on September 1st and the hunters at Dyrehaven are off to a good start. Every day there are shots fired on the range and the deer are whipping around. It is “business as usual” in a park with more than 2000 deer and of which approx. 700 are shot every year. The hunters are highly professional and very careful about safety, even though the animals may “smear” themselves quite close to you.
The short game area
Last week we dug up the lower part of the par 3 course. It is in this area that our short game area will be built. The excavation was an archaeological preliminary study to see if the ground was hiding anything interesting, as our entire par 3 course is located close to some old burial mounds. We have a really good collaboration with Kroppedal Museum, which is the regional museum for Dyrehaven, and all permits for the project have been given in advance, but when they finally dig in Dyrehaven, it is an opportunity for the archaeologists that cannot be missed. The work was quickly completed and they found traces of a number of old campfire sites, but nothing more than that.
On October 11th, the construction phase finally starts. It has been a long journey where approvals have played a big role. This year it has been a question of whether we would be able to find a master excavator who had time for the project because after the pandemic is over, the golf industry is busy. Our “regular” master excavator Frank Lowell found time for the project and that is great. He knows the course and the conditions very well because he was the one who was in charge of the excavation work when the course was restored back in 2008 and 2009. The architect on the project is Philip Spogard. Philip has prepared a plan for our training facilities where we will start with a missing short game area. If this is a success, the plan is to continue with the rest of the par 3 course.
The short game area will be large by our golf club's standards. The entire area will be a total of 2100m2 with a green of approx. 500m2. There will be large areas to hit different types of shots to the green. To make room for the area, the par 3 course's 5th hole will be closed and the 1st hole will be shortened. In addition, the rough will be moved to a new location at the back of the driving range. Moving the rough has been the big challenge because it is new for the authorities to give permission to move protected areas, but it worked.
When will the short game area open for play? The light fades quickly in October and it gradually gets cold. It is not ideal for establishing grass, but that is the time we have been given. It is my expectation that the area can be opened by Sankt Hans next year. The area is kept fenced almost until opening to prevent deer from getting hold of the turf.
Fairways
October begins with a major work on the fairways where topdressing is applied, aerating and reseeding is done. It is a huge job and will affect the entire week of week 40. A little later in October, a winter fertilizer is also applied.
So far we have done this major and troublesome work in March. Playing activity is limited in March and fairways are usually very worn and tired at this time of winter, deer and game so the timing has been OK. But last winter was different. Firstly, it was clear how much it helps that you all use mats, but the fairways were also firmer and denser than they usually are after winter. I am convinced that our soon-to-be many-year effort on the fairways has begun to bear fruit. We have suffered from a thin and shabby grass cover on the fairways for many years and the plan is that we will get rid of that. Such a “lift” takes a long time and longer than many players expect, but the fairways came out of the winter 21/22 better than before. Therefore it also made sense to move the top dressing to a more appropriate time when there is still growth in the grass. Now we will try in October and evaluate afterwards.
Autumn is a fantastically beautiful time of year in Dyrehaven and there will be plenty of great rounds of golf to play on the course. Enjoy. Martin Nilsson, Head Greenkeeper