Dear Members,

This note provides an update on the process of overplanting our fairways with Santa Ana couch, replacing the original Legend Couch.  As mentioned in previous announcements from the Board and the General Manager, a decision was taken early in 2019 to accelerate the overplanting with a planned whole-of-course overplanting in November this year.  The arrival of James Newell as our Course Superintendent, with his experience of successfully overplanting with Santa Ana at Woodlands and Yarra Yarra golf clubs, has provided a fresh perspective on how this process might be achieved.

As mentioned in recent news from James, the course has an unacceptably thick layer of thatch which we will need to reduce significantly in order to make the overplanting effective.  Members will have seen the impact of reducing thatch on the tees during the recent greens renovation week.  A similar dethatching exercise is required for the fairways.  The reason for this is that the thatch restricts the penetration of water and reduces the benefits of fertilisers which in turn affects the quality of playing surfaces and plant health. The current thatch accumulation provides a poor base for the Santa Ana stolons to establish. The result of this is that while a moderate result might have been achieved it will be a short term outcome and the better process is to reduce the thatch first to give the Santa Ana the best possible chance to outcompete the original Legend couch.

Santa Ana is an established species of couch found at many major clubs across Australia within similar climatic zones. It provides an excellent playing surface and has the benefit of a tight growth pattern which inhibits the development of other grasses and weeds, particularly Poa Annua or winter grass. Once cover is established Santa Ana will require variation in our irrigation, maintenance (especially thatch management through scarifying and verti-cutting) and chemical application programmes with the expected result of improved consistency of playing surface. 

This project started some years ago and due to a number of factors has had limited success. Most particularly, the distribution of stolons via the earlier method had a very low strike rate. A newer process will be implemented whereby the strike rate is anticipated to be significantly higher and improve the playing surface in a much shorter timeframe. 

The program will now be implemented in 2 stages in 2020. 

Stage 1 will commence on 10 February 2020 with scarifying of fairways 1 to 9 and then overplanting with Santa Ana stolons harvested from the Club’s two Santa Ana nurseries between the 2^nd and 3^rd holes and on the left of the 18^th hole, and from the established areas of the 8^th fairway. A contractor has been engaged with specialised machinery to carry out this work. The work for these 9 holes is expected to take 5-7 days to complete, weather permitting.

We expect to carry out Stage 2 in November 2020 once contract arrangements are finalised, with scarifying of fairways 10-18 following the same process as Stage 1.

During each of Stages 1 & 2, 18-hole rounds will be completed by playing the unaffected 9 holes twice.  The General Manager and the Captains have been working on a revised timesheet to permit this setup with no delay to commencing the second nine during a round.  We anticipate that the stolonised fairways should be closed for up to two weeks and, once re-opened, to allow preferred lies until we are satisfied the fairways are responding as planned. 

The Board is confident that the new grass will provide first class surfaces for play (as is already evident in some areas of the course) and further enhance the overall quality of the golf course. It is expected the timeframe for complete coverage is within 3 years. 

Peter Gaydon

Chairman

---

Back to previous page