Grass is always greener

ROYAL Golf Club members have been able to carry on playing this season as over-seeding and improvements are made to the Colin Montgomerie-designed course at Riffa Views, writes Stan Szecowka.

DJ Flanders, general manager, who is celebrating his first anniversary at the club, says ‘some progress’ has been made in enhancing the operation, golf course conditioning, services and the club’s financial health.

“However, I will be the first one to tell you that we have a lot more work left to get the facility up to our members and Troon Golf’s standards,” he said.

Troon Golf, an international golf management company, was appointed last year to take over the running of the club and Flanders is one of its rising stars.

The management is committed to ‘this continuous process’ he added and the club’s agronomy team is busy rebuilding bunkers and filling in parts of the desert on the main attraction as well as improving the Wee Monty executive nine hole course.

The front nine holes were closed for over-seeding in the last week of October and work started on the main course’s back nine on Sunday, which should be completed by tomorrow. “We are doing our over-seeding process differently this year by closing one nine at a time versus a complete closure of two weeks,” explained Flanders.

After feedback from members and guests, the club recently announced plans to fill in the desert on hole 14 to create one fairway.

Jordan Fairweather, golf course superintendent, said: “We will not change the contours and design of the golf hole except for capping with sand and grassing over. We have also completed the installation of all new rakes on the championship course and hope to complete the Wee Monty by late November.”

In September the team carried out many ‘tidy up’ and edging jobs including the removal of sand from the lake edge on hole 18, tending to landscape drip irrigation and re-laying turf on cart path edges.

The over-seeding process involves mixing cool season rye grass into the summer Paspalum grass, which by early November will start to slow its growth and may even become fully dormant depending on temperatures.

The rye grass will provide players with quality year-round playing surfaces, better aesthetics and protect the Paspalum grass underneath from wear and tear during a period where it cannot produce its own carbohydrate food reserves.