Absolutely gutted. We had new turf laid in May and have religiously watered it through the hot weather (no hosepipe ban here), stayed off it for 6 weeks, then cut it on the highest setting etc etc.
Once we cut it we noticed a few brown patches but thought they would just come back as they had maybe grown a little long due to the intense and unexpected sunny weather and the base of the grass blades had died a little.
Anyway, the bulk of the grass is now looking ok, but there have been significant patches which just looked totally dead and matted. I tried to pull them upright and the dead straw-like grass came away in my hands. I then saw all the grubs.
Long story short - we seem to have an infestation of leatherjackets and as the grass is new, it obviously doesn’t have the strong root structure to cope.
We have pulled out what we can see and put down new seed on the bare soil.
What else can we do? We are gutted - it’s at the front of the house too and we’ve worked so bloody hard on the turf and the planting to get it looking decent!