Maintenance Progress Report - April 2023

Greens

The greens at Abu Dhabi Golf Club vastly improved during the last few weeks and are continuing to improve day by day. Contributing factors for this strong recovery are the programs we have in place to flush salts through the soil profile and the elevation in soil temperatures as we nudge closer to summer which is ideal for the warm-season grass species we manage. Although there was an immensely positive transformation of the Greens; playability-wise, conditions deteriorated due to many inconsistencies between the active healthy growth and the sporadic dead patches on several of the Greens. The strategy throughout April regarding these problematic areas on Greens was to encourage ‘lateral growth’ with increased fertility and organic-rich topdressing spread over affected areas. In areas where the gap between dead and living grass was too large to hang on for natural recovery, we helped bridge those gaps with turf plugging. These practices will continue heavily into the next week in preparation for the tournament and also renovations in May.

Height of Cut: 3 mm

Cultural control:

- Pencil-tined greens x2

- Verti-cut

- Manual pitch mark repairs

- Flushed greens x 4

- Topdressing uneven weaker areas with silica sand x2

Tees

The Tees again performed well in the last few weeks. Disease on some isolated Tee tops remained evident throughout the month of March and April, however, they were treated with a fungicide application in mid-March, and with the rise in temperatures the Paspalum began to out-compete the disease with a noticeable transformation by the end of March. Whilst the Tees are in good condition, you can feel them becoming a little spongy; this is caused by excessive levels of thatch. This is normally treated by cultural practices such as verticutting

Cultural control:

- Daily divot repair

- Solidtine all Tee’s

- Verti-cut all Tee’s

Height of Cut: 8 mm

Fairways

Disease on most fairways remained evident however they were treated with a fungicide application and expect good recovery. In addition, we did some cultural practices on the fairways which will l help with the disease such as Solidtining and verticutting.

Cultural Control:

- Verti-cut all fairways

- Spike all fairways

- Topdress all fairways

Height of cut: 9 mm

Roughs

The rough remains in good condition as the temperature rises, we have to adjust the mowing schedules. With the amount of growth, we need to mow the rough more frequently. The main objective for the coming months will be to turf all Bermuda grass with Paspalum in the rough.

Bunkers

Bunkers underwent the customary monthly edging and weeding to maintain the high standards we have in place. It was highlighted by our members, that they would like softer bunker playing conditions. To assist in resolving this issue we replaced the teeth on the mechanical raking machines to break through the top surface of the sand.

In saying this, it is important to note that the key element for the hard bunkers is caused by involuntary over-watering due to poor irrigation design. With the Green sprinklers rotating 360 degrees, greenside bunkers receive the equivalent high amounts of irrigation required to regularly flush the Greens of toxic levels of salts.

Works Completed

1. Cultural works for transition

2. Fairway and Tees divot program

3. Bunker work

4. Lake cleaning

5. Driving range Tee reopen.

Upcoming Works for April 2023

1. Further improvement on our greens.

2. Renovations of the putting and chipping green

3. Green turf plugging and topdressing

4. Bunker consistency

5. Level Tees.