Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Welcome to summer

It has been a while since my last post, but I hope to make them a bit more frequent in the future. After a very dry end to winter, the rain has finally come and dramatically improved the course. It will be interesting to see how our new drainage put in through the course handles any wet weather we may experience through summer.

The new ninth tee has settled in very well and is a welcome improvement over the old one. We plan to also rebuild the 18th in the very early part of next year.

Today we also welcome our newest member of the Gailes family, my kids have named him Daryl, and he is hopefully going to be company for our resident Muscovy Duck. There is much conjecture on our current ducks name, every member I meet seems to have a different name, I have always called him Murray, just because he looks like a Murray! By the way, I think Murray is actually a girl.


Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Very Cold

Winter has come in a big, big way. After the wet start to the season, the days have become clear and magnificent. As I write this, Brisbane has currently had 17 consecutive days where the minimum has been under double figures, the longest stretch in 15 years. Although this is not great for growing grass, it does make our job easier to get those jobs done that we generally can't through the growing season.

As most of you would have seen, drainage has been our focus recently, after many years of drought we are now trying to get the water off the course. Even though Gailes has a long history of being one of the best wet weather courses in Queensland, after the last 2 years of wet weather, we have certainly proved that correct. Whilst many clubs were struggling to stay open, we were ready to play every day.

We are concentrating on the areas that have stayed wet far too long during rainy periods. We have finished off the area about 100m out from the second green on the right hand side, this should also prove to help drain the opposing area on the first fairway. The next area was on the down hill slope on the first just past the fairway bunkers, this has also proved very successful. The area we are currently working on is around the thirteenth green, this has been a problem particularly this year. There are many more drainage projects in the wings and we will complete as many as we can before the growing season kicks in.

The next stage of our paths should be laid in the coming months, these will be continuations or extensions of the ones we have. The paths will serve two purposes, to ensure cart play in the wet times, and to attempt to eliminate cart wear around playing areas. As everybody would notice, carts are becoming more and more the norm on all courses, because Gailes was designed and built in the 1920's, carts weren't a factor in the design or even thoughts of Henry Ellerton. As carts are now a part of golfing life, and their use will only increase, we need to make provision now.

Happy Golfing and keep warm,

Stewart Poole

Friday, July 20, 2012

Busy in winter

Its been too long since my last post, but I hope to get a bit more regular in my updates.

So much for winter being the dry season in Brisbane! The past four weeks has seen the course cop another 127mm of rain, we simply have not had a chance to dry out. A case in point is we haven't irrigated the fairways since December last year, the tees and greens have also only needed a drop or two.

Although Gailes is regarded as a very wet weather friendly course, I have seen a few others recently and can agree, but we can always improve. Over the past year or so we have carried out many drainage works, with a lot of it focused on the second and first holes. The works on the second have been a great success and the new works on the first look to be doing the job as well. We still have quite a few areas we would like to complete during the off season, such as around the thirteenth green and left of the fourth fairway.

One area of the course we have had some negative feedback on has been the newly refurbished bunkers on the tenth and seventeenth, with some people believing they are too soft or fluffy. As most golfers would know, bunkers are hazards, and just like water hazards, there are no regulations or recommendations on how they should be maintained. In fact many golf courses around the world are leaning towards low maintenance bunkers to reduce costs.

Jack Nicklaus and Pete Dye, two of the worlds most esteemed golf course designers both state a bunker should be a half shot penalty, so you shouldn't be able to get up and down every second time. But, due to the clubs desire to have the course as consistent as possible, the committee decided to "thicken" up these four bunkers with some different sand. The best advice I can give for bunker play is to avoid them, if you can't, you've played a poor shot, so take your punishment and move to the next hole.

Happy golfing,

Stewart Poole


Friday, February 24, 2012

More rain

As I sit and write this on Friday afternoon, it is raining quite steadily and the forecast is not looking to good either. The weather bureau is predicting 100-150mm of rain overnight and into the morning, which doesn't bode well for the final round of the Bobby Locke medal.

The rain coming today is quite a shame as the course was looking really good after a busy weeks work, the bunkers were all dry and raked, the rough is cut and the fairways were, as usual, excellent. We had a little bit of rain earlier in the week, but it came at a good time as I was on the verge of irrigating anyway.

We have moved the old bunker sand from the 11th flight area this week and spread it across some flight areas and path run offs, this should make traveling on a cart a bit smoother, and over time, look much better as well. Although the course will probably be wet, I hope everyone enjoys their game on the weekend.

Happy Golfing,
Stewart Poole

Friday, February 10, 2012

Wednesday Storms

After a good 10 days of sunlight and drying weather, we were hit with a very nasty storm. I was fortunate enough to be out playing in the Wednesday comp this week when at about 3.30pm a massive storm swept over most of Brisbane. Within 20 mins we received 37mm, (an inch and a half) the rain was as heavy as I have seen any where. The water was flowing across the road on the first and level was about a foot above the dam the whole way across to the main dam.

The majority of the course handled the rain very well, although the bunkers were again trashed, many full of water and the majority were washed out. although this is good to settle the new sand, it is a massive amount of work for the groundstaff. All of the bunker bar 2 are back in play, so the weekend should be as per normal.

Happy Golfing
Stewart Poole

Friday, February 3, 2012

Finally a respite from the poor weather, over the week of rain we had just short of 300mm or a foot in the old money. This being considered, the course as of today is in very good shape. The entire course has been cut, and in some cases, several times, all of the bunkers are in play and there is very little water laying around.

The committee decided to allow motorised carts on the course on Wednesday, and I can say it was quite a success, there was not damage and very little in the way of wheel marks anywhere. This weekend carts are allowed through the course, but hopefully everybody will still use common sense and stay away from any wet or boggy areas.

Those of you that played last weekend and Wednesday will also be happy to know the greens are back to a more decent speed this week. The growth of the grass plays a very big part in green speed, normally we will take 1-2 catcher loads of grass off the 18 holes, last week at its peak we were taking 9-10 catchers loads. As you can imagine, this will slow the greens dramatically. As of Friday, we are back very close to where we want to be.

Good Golfing,

Stewart Poole

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Rain, rain and more rain

It has been a very difficult week for us with well over 200mm recorded since Sunday. The bulk of the rain came Tuesday and Wednesday this week, but continual showers amounting to half and inch at least per day has made life hard.

The first round of the Bobby Locke has been postponed until next weekend. The main reason for this was the course just simply isn't up to hosting one of our premier events. The course could not take buggies this weekend either, meaning people that need carts to play the course would have to miss out on the final three rounds.

As of Friday the 27th of January we had the course cut, raked and rolled ready for play, but the 15mm we had overnight made honour board golf not possible for today.

All we can do is hope for better conditions next week and get back to playing golf.

Stewart Poole