The last contact with members was during our Covid19 lockdown, which now seems a long time ago. The course recovered well and bounced back quickly once the disease outbreak on the fairways was under control.
We are now well into winter and the shortest day is now behind us. Winter comes with shorter daylight hours and of course the occasional frost, which can be disruptive to both golfers and course staff. Frosts do have an effect on turf, and there can be damage from traffic if it hasn’t begun the thawing process. Any damage caused to turf at this time takes a lot longer to heal and will not grow out until spring arrives. The reduced grow rate influences green speed and to a degree the firmness of surfaces. There is not a lot that can be done to stop this from happening especially on sand top dressed greens. The only tools the course superintendent has to stop greens from becoming too quick is to limit mowing, spreading out the frequency of sand applications, and using nitrogenous fertilisers to give the turf a little help. Unfortunately, the latter can lead to other problems such as poor fertilizer uptake, and the risk of stimulating turf disease. It is generally the case that most golf courses experience faster green speeds during the winter months of June, July, and August.
Some members have expressed their dissatisfaction to front line staff when they are turned away from early bookings when we have frost conditions. Staff do their very best to ensure players can play and try to accommodate golfers where they can, and they certainly cannot control the weather. The club has a frost policy which has not changed for a few years and is relevant. The last two years we have pushed as hard as we can to allow golfers to access the course during frosty weather by allowing players out as soon as the thaw has begun, even when there are still frosty areas on the course. We have found that as soon as the thaw begins the turf does not burn like it does when frost is settling. Depending on the severity of the frost and the time of year play is usually under way between 8:30 and 8:45am.
The decision as to what time to allow play is difficult as it is a shifting target. The sunrise at the end of May is earlier than sunrise in mid-June for instance, and that changes by about 1 minute per day. The sun angle gets lower as the shortest day gets nearer, and our eastern boundary is flanked by mature pine trees which shade the entire course for at least the first half hour after sunrise. Generally, course staff are onsite just before sunrise making it very difficult to assess the frost conditions when it is dark. We tend to see the air temperature dropping until it hits its lowest, usually as the sun rises. It is not uncommon for us to set up to work only to find turf icing up after leaving the sheds and having to retreat.
For those players who book early during the mid-winter months anything before 8:30am is a risk. There are very easy ways to predict when a frost is likely and generally the Metservice website is very accurate in predicting temperatures days’ out.
When a large stable anti-cyclone or high-pressure system is moving onto New Zealand it will generally bring light winds and clear skies. Anti-cyclones or high-pressure systems spin anti-clockwise in the southern hemisphere so cold air will be pulled up from the south as the high moves onto the country and conversely very slightly warmer northerly air movement as it leaves. If you combine no wind, clear skies, and southerly air movement it creates the recipe for frost conditions. By looking at predicted lows on Metservice website during a high-pressure event anything 3 degrees or below will usually result in a frost in Hawkes Bay. That means if they predict a high of 16 and a low of 1 on Saturday the 1 will generally be the low temperature experienced early Sunday morning (not Saturday morning) and hence a frost. On the course we see a frost as soon as air temperature dips below 3 degrees.
For those interested in weather or want to know what the weather is doing at the course we have our own weather station on site which members can access on a smart device or computer. It is linked to the worldwide weatherunderground network. Basically, this is a collection of public weather stations spread over the world which report local weather conditions to a weatherunderground web site. To reach that site click here.
The link should take you direct to our club page however if you need to navigate and find us, along the top of this page it has a box labelled search locations. Click on this box and type in the following exactly as follows:
IHASTING74 (that is i not one --hasting without the s --74. All in capitals)
This will bring up the Hastings Golf Club weather station. It gives real time weather at the club, updated about every minute. It also shows a wonder map which can be scrolled to uncover all the stations around the world linked to the weatherunderground network. There is also an app that I think is free, which can be downloaded from the app store. Once you open the app, I think it uses your location and will show a map of Hawke’s Bay with all weatherunderground stations, so just clicking on the location of the club should bring up our weather information.
The website holds all records of weather at the club since November 2018. This includes air temperature, wind velocity and direction. Rainfall intensity, amount, air pressure, solar radiation, and UV.
If logging in on a computer this is an American site and can sometimes come through with imperial measurements. This can be changed once in the Hastings Golf Club weather station by clicking on the view wonder map feature, and this will bring up a map – it will also show 3 stacked white bars on the top far right of screen - click on this and this will reveal settings- click on settings and 2 boxes appear with F and C -click on C and then click on the map - this will show a box with save pref on the right side of screen. Click on this and it will ask question “do you want to save?” and there is a save preferences box to click. If you log out of the site and when you log in again the information should flick from Imperial to Celsius – mm - and kmph.
Gordon Trembath
Course Superintendent