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The following maintenance will be carried out from 22/06/09 until the end of the month

All greens will be solid tined using micro tines and top dressed.

All greens cut 6 days this week, cutting height 4mm

Tees will be cut twice this week, cutting height 14mm

Greens and Tees will be fertilised

Bunkers will be raked four times per week with the motorised rake and more stones removed

General cutting of fairways cutting height 15mm

Semi rough cut once 35mm

Course update 09/06/2009

Greens

The majority of the greens now support a sward that is both lush and darker in colour. The
growth habit of the sward is generally good. The surface has improved through verticutting, topdressing and a rise in ground temperatures which in turn stimulate micro organisms in the
soil this helps brake down fertilisers into a nitrate so that they can become assessable to the
grass plant. The majority of the weeds in the greens have now been removed. The height of
cut on the greens has now been lowered to 4 mm. Stimpmeter readings taken on the 2"^d green
today gave a reading of 8ft bin. This is classed as medium fast for members golf and medium
for tournament golf.

In the coming week the greens will be verticut, rolled and cut daily. They will be sprayed with
liquid iron Wednesday. During the week commencing 15^t" the greens will be solid tined and
top dressed.

Bunkers

The bunkers are now all in play including the faces, the majority of the weeds have been
removed and 150 tonnes of sand added with another 30 tonnes waiting to top up. Stones are
being removed as the bunkers are being raked

Irrigation

The irrigation system is now working fully after some computer software problems were repaired.

Staff issues

Staff issues have been addressed with the addition of two part time staff members joining the greenkeeping team to be used as required. They have been working mostly on weeding and
raking bunkers.

LITTLE HAY GOLF CLUB CONCERNS AS TO THE CONDITION OF THE GOLF COURSE.

GREENS

General Observations

The greens at this time have not yet met the standard I would expected them to be at for the time of year. A few reasons have contributed to this. After the snow we had, the greens were covered with approximaiely 100mm. for ten – fourteen days. When the snow melted the greens had contracted fusarium disease, this is common as the conditions under the snow is ideal for the disease to spread. Although the day time temperatures have been warm lately, it has still been cold at night with frost into the beginning of May,

The greens at Little Hay are made up of mostly Annual Meadow grass, When the ground temperatures drop below 4,00% the grass becomes dormant. Annual meadow grass also has the potential to produce a large amount of seed heads this is the only grass species used on golf greens that produce seed heads. Other grass species in the greens at Little Hay grow at different speeds and ground temperatures, all of the above contribute to the greens being bobbly at this time of year. This has been explained to the club on numerous occasions and backed up in reports on the course by the Sports Turf Research Institute.

We have also experienced teething problems with the new irrigation ststem which I hope Ihave managed to fix and a rep from the company who designed the system will be visiting us to fix out the remaining problems on Friday 22/05/2009

Recommendations for improvements for the greens surface

Fertilisation of all greens to encourage growth.

Verticutting,aeration and topdressing

Reduce the height of cut to 4.5mm

Hand weeding of the greens

Irrigation problems repaired

This remedial work and an increase in ground conditions will see a vast improvements in the playing surfaces in the next few weeks.

Bunkers

Bunkers at many golf clubs, are a significant maintenance headache. They require a high level of maintenance with limited gain in terms of overall playability of the course.

All of the bunkers at Little Hay used to suffer from drainage and soil and stone erosion from the bunker faces resulting in contamination of the sand area of the bunkers. This problem was addressed in the summer of 2008. There has always been a problem with stones in the bunkers at Little Hay and the conditions we are experiencing at the moment is nothing new. The new grass faces have been cut twice and will improve with every cut

Recommendations for the improvement to the bunkers

150 tonnes of new sand to be put into the bunkers. This additional sand is more than has been added at anytime in the past ten years.

The staff will continue to remove stones as they rake the bunkers as they have always done.

The new grass faces will continue to be cut and the grass cuttings removed.

Staff Issues

One member of the greenkeeping staff has been on holiday for three weeks which unfortunately coincided with the clubhouse fire and the associated, substantial and unexpected work that was required in dealing with those issues.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR IMPROVING STAFF LEVELS

Another part time seasonal member of staff will join the greenkeeping team as previously planned.

George Reid                                                                                                                            
Manger Little Hay Golf Complex.

Sportspace = Dacorum Sports Trust