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Tee To Green February

12th February 2025

Find out the latest from our Greenkeepers in this month's Tee to Green.

The Downs Course

This month we have had a considerable amount of animal damage on the course. A lot of bird damage on the 14^th hole, including the green, apron and fairway. We have repaired most of this with sand or divot mix and there is now less activity on this area. Other areas which have been hit are the 10^th and top of the 11^th fairway. Also, we have had a lot of badger damage on the 11^th and 16^th fairway again, which we repair daily.

A few trees will be coming down this month to aid in the playability of some holes. Mainly the 7^th, where we are going to remove 2 holm oaks on the right carry, as they are encroaching on peoples drives from the top tees. This should take a few days to clear, so all the markers will be put on the green tees for these days for safety reasons. We are also removing a few smaller trees around the course which have died or growing into other trees. As part of our ecology plan, we will be planting some fruit trees between the 5^th walk off and 6^th tees, plus a few trees on the 1^st and 18^th to increase the woodland edge.

The 5^th tee and 12^th tee bank have been stripped of turf and are ready for turfing. The 5^th left bank was also stripped of trees and scrub the previous month and burnt on the tee top, to reduce the wear and tear to the tee sides and carry because of the wet weather conditions, as if we transported to a burning site this would have caused a lot of damage to the turf . We would not normally have a fire on the tee, but with the above in mind and that we were going to re-turf the tee anyway, this was the best place to do it, albeit a little unorthodox.

Unfortunately, we have had a bit of damage on the 10^th green with regards to a motorbike driving across it a few times. This has damaged the green slightly. We have added sand to make the green level again for play and when temperatures rise, we will add some bent seed to recover these areas.

Looking ahead into March we will be completing our greens maintenance, similar with what we did last March with a few tweaks. The GKB Scarifying / sand replacement machine will be used to cut a 4mm line in the surface to a depth of around 20mm to remove 10% of the thatch layer, then back filed with sand in the same process. Also, we will be hollow coring the greens with a 10mm core to a depth of around 75mm and back filled with sand by top dressing. These operations are needed to reduce our thatch levels, which have been an issue over the past 7 to 8 years and having 2 previous years of wet summers which has only encouraged the thatch. We will aim to apply around 70-80 tonne of sand to the greens surface after these processes.

We have also distributed sand in the front 9 holes of bunkers from the edges and will continue to do this on the back 9 in the upcoming weeks. Then we have a good base to start with in the spring. We have also de-compacted a few of the problem bunkers on the 5^th and left greenside on the 6^thwhich were becoming very hard.

The 18^th right fairway bunker and right hand rough still has leaks running into them from the estate pipeline. The new pipe is meant to be commissioned on the 13^th February and then we can make a start on repairing the bunker and surrounding area once the old leaking pipe has been turned off.

See you on the course.

Rob Dyer, Head Greenkeeper, The Downs Course

The Park Course

This month has been another mixed bag of weather. From a couple of storms, frozen conditions and been very dull. January is a long month, especially after Christmas, but signs of Spring are on the way. Slowly it’s getting brighter earlier in the mornings and staying lighter in the evenings. Some may have spotted some daffodils out!

The course has held up well with the weather and we’ve only been shut following extreme conditions. Some areas are showing sign of wear, especially walk off points and around tees. We have put post and rope around these areas and signs to help with the wear and to direct traffic away from the worse areas. We will continue to monitor and move these around. Please follow the signs and keep trollies off the tee boxes.

Due to the amount of golf and weather conditions, the surfaces are looking good for this time of year. The greens are in excellent health with our continued foliar and fungicide programs. The tees are showing signs of wear and we have been keeping up as much as possible to help with this. The team continue to fully divot tees to aid quicker recovery every week.

The team this month have been hard at work edging some of the pathways. The path around The Copse/Short Game area has been edged up towards the first tee. The path around the 2^nd and 16^th tees has also been completed. The path coming from 15^th green is very muddy and we will be looking to tidy this up once the weather settles. We would like to scrape the mud with a digger and then top up the path with fresher stone. The team have also done a great job in The Copse area in between 14/15^th holes. They have raised the canopy of the shrubs and used brush cutters to remove all the thistles around the bases.

The new putting green on the Short Game area will continue to be rested until we get some better weather and growing conditions. Recovery is slow but the good news is that its looks better daily. Resting the green now insures we have a healthy green ready for a busy summer.

Phase One of The Parks Masterplan is starting to take shape now. Behind the 11^th green and to the right of 12^th tee have been marked out with stakes with the first trees going in this week. The area behind 11^th is GUR until the area has been fully planted. They are mature trees so going to have big impact on the hole. The contractors who done the Copse and Short Game, MJ Abbotts, will be arriving on the 17^th March to start moving the 4^th tee and shaping new bunkers on 4/13^th holes as well as changing some on 3^rd and 12^th holes.

Ross McMurrary, Lead Architect at European Golf Design will be joining us at The Goodwood Hotel in the Cedar Suite on Thursday 27 February at 6:00pm to discuss the upcoming upgrades. If you would to join us please contact golf@goodwood.com to book a place.

See you on the course.

Scott Peterson, Deputy Head Greenkeeper, The Park Course