Course Walk

A course walk to examine the changes to holes 10, 11 and 12 will take place on Friday 9th December. Any member who is interested in seeing first hand the progress so far on the project is invited to meet me outside the Rangers' office at 1pm on Friday 9th December. The walk will also take place on Saturday 10th December, also at 1pm, for anyone unavailable to make it on the Friday.

Hole 10 Progress Update

The shaping of the green complex on the 10th hole is well underway. The new rootzone is being added to the green and the three new fairway bunkers are now in place, one of which has been revetted. This hole should be ready for turfing to commence around Monday 5th December.

Green complex with two bunkers left side

 Right side fairway bunker

 Left side fairway bunkers

Shaping Hole 11

Our earthworks team from MJ Abbott Ltd have now finished all the contouring and shaping work on the 11th hole. We now have seven new bunkers, a new green complex, adjustments to the left side of the fairway from 100 yards out all the way to the green and a new white and yellow teeing ground. Turf for these areas is due to be delivered on Tuesday with the work expected to be completed by the end of next week.

Deep Tine Aeration Using Verti-Drain

This week we are using the Verti-Drain machine to punch holes in the surface of the greens. The machine has been set up to give us holes that are half an inch in diameter,10 inches deep and with a two inch gap between each. For the first time this year we have split each green in two, one half of each green was verti drained three weeks ago and now that recovery from that operation has taken place, we are moving onto the other half of each green. This process is designed to ensure that hole locations can be kept on comparatively smooth areas of the greens all the time. A short video of the machine in action on the 16th green is shown below.

To find out more about why we do this work to the greens, click on the label "aeration" below.

Hole 10 Preparation

With the shaping work on the 11th fairway areas progressing well, some of the earthworks team are now moving onto the area at the 10th green and 11th tee to begin the top soil removal and clay excavation works. When the clay soil is gone considerable reshaping work will take place to improve the contouring of this green and increase the connectivity with the surrounding land.

 Clay removal on 10th green

The 11th tee is set to be longer and wider

Hole 12 Complete

A day and a half of hard work saw the course team complete the turfing work on the surround and approach of hole 12. About 1250 square metres of material was laid in total. The 200 square metres that is left over from the delivery yesterday will be used to make start on the collar of the 11th.

New Turf Delivery

Today we received a delivery of 1440 square metres of pure fescue turf. We plan to use this material on the surround and approach on hole 12 with any left over being used on hole 11. The turf has had quite a journey to get here, it was grown on the turf farm of specialist sports turf supplier County Turf in North Lincolnshire where it was cut and loaded onto pallets first thing on Monday morning.

Our new turf growing happily in Lincolnshire

It arrived in Portsmouth in time to make the overnight ferry to Jersey and was then delivered up to La Moye at 11am today. The whole process took a little over 24hrs which means the course team have around another 48hrs to get the turf on the ground before significant degradation of the material begins.

Unloading the turf at La Moye

 

The first 500m2 of turf in place on the 12th

12th Green Grow In

Three weeks have past since the 12th greens turf was laid and with the favourable weather conditions of late, the turf has put down lots of roots already. Now that the turf is stable work can begin on improving surface levels through light weight rolling and top dressing. The turf iron was used on the green for the first time on Friday to begin smoothing out the surface.

Turfing 11th Green

All the turf has now been laid on the new 11th green. The earthworks contractor finished the final shaping work last Wednesday which allowed the course team to get on with the re-turfing work first thing Thursday morning. The last turf was in place early on Friday afternoon.

Final shaping work

 

Laying the turf

The finished surface

11th Hole Bunker Revetting

Six of the seven new bunkers on hole 11 have now been revetted. MJ Abbott shapers did the preparation work prior to the course team building the bunker faces.

Left side greenside

 Right side approach

Right hand approach

Right side fairway

Transplanting Dune Sod

A key process involved in the project work on holes 11 and 12 is the stripping and relaying of dune or rough grass sod from the out of play areas. To make best use of resources and to help give an instant "mature look" to the finished result we have been using the excavators to gently strip off sections of dune sod from areas which require re-contouring and then placing them back down with the greatest care and precision onto already completed areas. As the grass in this sod is often very fragile the contractor has developed a useful strategy to handle each piece. An excavator is used to strip a section of turf, the bucket from the excavator is then detached with the turf still inside and the whole thing is placed into one of the 9 tonne dumpers. The dumper then takes the turf section (still safely sat inside the detached excavator bucket) to the area where it is to be re-laid. At this point a second excavator attaches the bucket and then carefully lays the turf section onto the newly created dune area. This process ensures that despite the fragile nature of the grass each and every dune sod section is used and no wastage occurs. It takes considerable skill to make sure all the sods are stripped to the same thickness and they are all placed back down in exactly the correct position. The turf could not withstand being picked up a second time and repositioned as it would most likely disintegrate. The finished result looks fantastic. 

A short video showing one end of the process is shown below.

Creating New Mounding

Additional mounding has been built to try to hide the path next to the 13th tee when viewed from the 12th tee. The area was stripped of existing sod before around 200 tonnes of sand was brought in and shaped to give a natural appearance.

Before Work Started

Taking shape

The Shaped Mounding

 Dune Sod Added

11th Hole Bunker Shaping

Our earthworks contractor MJ Abbott have almost completed the rough shaping work around the bunkers on the 11th hole.

The course team are currently busy building the revetted face in each of the bunkers before top soiling around is carried out.