Column | The Greenkeeper Writes
Published on April 7, 2020The Day After Part 2
Barely had he walked into the office he saw his assistants Chong and Balan, following in his footsteps. As soon as he sat down behind his desk, both were already at the two chairs opposite him, so fast were they or was it he, who was so slow? He decided not to think too much about his aching body for now.
“Good morning boss,” Chong greeted. “Ya, morning boss,” echoed Balan.
“Ya, ya, morning,” replied Roslan “So what’s the story about my golf course?”
Both assistants began speaking at once raising their voices to drown the other before Roslan raised his hand to silence them.
“One by one lah. Chong, give me a summary.”
“Boss, the greens on the South Course, in general, are okay, the grass is long lah. But the weeds are so many. I don’t know how long we can finish weeding like this.”
“No diseases? No dead grass? No brown spots?”
“No boss, the South Course no disease. North Course got disease.” He glanced at Balan who nodded sadly. “Green 16 has some brown grass; probably due to the localised dry spot on top of the slope we talked about last year.”
Roslan remembered that slope; the designer made the slope so steep that water would roll off it instead of penetrating it. It had survived thus far because he used wetting agents and aerated that area – and the one on green 4 – more often than the rest of the greens.
He knew why South Course experienced less problems than he expected; the club had 36 holes and due to cost-cutting measures over the past two years, he had to play favourites and since the South Course or SC as they like to call it, was the longer, tournament standard course favoured by the bosses and VIPs, he spent more of his time and money there and so for the past two years, the South Course had been maintained to a higher standard than the North Course.
He shook his head “What about mowing? How tall was the grass on the green?”
“The grass is crazy tall boss, before the lockdown we were cutting at 4mm, since yesterday I was cutting at 8mm and there was so much clippings on the greens. This part, NC was luckier, not so much clippings and not so long,” said Chong.
That’s because there was less fertilisation on NC greens, thought Roslan. He needed to pay more attention to fertility levels and be careful not to over-fertilise SC just to make them greener. Well, a project for another day, not today.
“I plan to cut at 8mm for a few days until less clippings then I thought I will do dethatching to straighten the grass, then reduce to 7mm for a few days then reduce to 6mm for a few days, dethatch then reduce to 6mm then to 5mm then dethatch again then only go to 4mm. Okay ah, boss?” asked Chong.
“Ya. Sounds good, keep your eyes open for any changes in the grass colour. If you cut too much too soon, the grass will turn brown. Call me if that happens. We may just risk it and continue or we may increase back the height,” said Roslan.
Chong frowns. “What about the fertiliser boss?”
“Bring the cutting height down to say, 5mm then only we use granular fertiliser. In the meantime, use foliar. If we don’t have any foliar, hold the fertiliser for a while. What about the dry spots?” said Roslan.
“We have manually aerated the dry areas and also applied wetting agents boss. I’ll monitor them.”
“What about the fairways?” asked Roslan.
“Fairways are having tall grass and got more dry areas. But now the issue is about the tall grass. I am dealing with that first. I know we should also slice the dry areas but we don’t have enough tractors to pull the slicer so I sent some workers with knapsacks spraying wetting agents on those areas and watering them down,” Chong replied.
“You seem to have everything under control,” said Roslan. “When can you open, you think.”
“En. Hisham has been asking to open the golf course since yesterday boss.”
Roslan winced upon hearing Hisham’s name. Hisham was the manager of the golf department and a pain in his behind: always second-guessing him and trying to exert control over his staff.
He knew there was going to be trouble if he didn’t gain control of the golf course, an outright power struggle. Right now, Golf Course Maintenance was an independent department, but Hisham has wanted it under his control ever since Roslan could remember.
The thought made him want to stand up and just disappear into the golf course, but just the thought of it made him grimace in pain.
“You okay boss?” Balan asked.
“I’m alright” insisted Roslan.
“You don’t look alright.” Balan’s face was one of concern. He was half out of his chair.
“I AM ALL RIGHT!” shouted Roslan, his face turning red. “Look, SC is better maintained so it withstood the long neglect better than NC.” He ticked them off on his finger one by one. “One, South Course is to be mowed more frequently; example, the fairways are mown twice a week compared to North Course. Two, we put more amount of fertiliser per square metre on South Course. Three, South Course has better machinery and more workers and Four, SC also benefitted from more cultural practices. Where NC greens were hollow-tined once a year, SC greens were done twice a year. We sliced the fairways on the SC but never on the NC. I am sorry Balan. I need to focus on SC to make sure at least one 18-hole can be opened first.”
A look of sadness mixed with anger could be seen on Balan’s face. “It’s not my…”
“It’s not your fault,” Roslan cut him off mid-sentence “I know,” he emphasised then lowering his tone continued, “It was my decision. I needed to cut cost but at the same time, we needed to show we could have given the members a better golf course if they gave us the money. I needed to show it’s about the budget, not our skills.”
He drew a sigh “So most of the budget goes to South Course, the tournament course. About 75% of it.”
The room fell silent. Chong looked uncomfortable, Balan’s face was hard to read; he was looking at the floor.
Roslan felt anger rising up in him again. He never was comfortable with Balan but Balan was good at managing with what he was given. He was young, he would go places. It’s was just that sometimes he talked too much and right now, talk was the last thing that Roslan wanted to do “You know what? Let’s continue this later. Let me go round the courses.”
Roslan stood up and then fell back into his chair. This time no one said anything. “Just go!” Roslan snapped and they both walked out.
Roslan sat in his chair trying to compose himself. There was a soft knock on the door. Nina let herself in.
Sweet Nina.
She walked to the edge of the table in front of Roslan, “Is everything alright? I heard shouting.”
Roslan nodded. He didn’t know what else to say. He never could think straight with Nina so close. Her smell was… it makes his head swim. No, it wasn’t the smell. It was her presence. Her medium-length hair. Her smile.
She touched his cheek and smiled “How’s your back?”
“It’s still painful.” Part of Roslan wanted to turn away from her touch, the other part longed for more. He missed her. He knew it was wrong but he couldn’t help it. He shook his head to clear it “I need to go into the golf course.”
“You can’t drive the buggy. Let me drive you. Please.” She held his hand.
He nodded.
