Weekend Update

A really busy and productive week on the course depite some early morning frosts.
We have dug out and shaped all the bunkers we are renovating this winter (10 in all), as we don't want to lay any turf beyond the end of February. The remaining turfing should be complete on Monday and the final shaping a few weeks after that. The edging, cutting and topping up of the other bunkers will be finished sometime next week also.
We managed to top-dress the greens over 2 afternoons and followed this up with a brushing and a pass over with the turf iron to smooth and help close over the aeration holes. We plan to apply some liquid nutrient to the greens early next week to further speed their recovery.
The fairway aeration continues and is a few weeks away from completion. When this is finished, we will move onto the tees and approaches.
If the weather holds, we plan to start some work on the 5th hole, re-profiling the carry and improving drainage. The remaining tree stumps will be dug out as well and the holes repaired.
Despite the recent poor weather, the winter league was completed last week, a minor miracle I think.

Enjoy the sunshine this weekend.

Mark & The Greens team.

Weekend Update.

A busy week despite the weather (enough said I think).

Despite our best efforts the greens surfaces have softened to the extent that using them would damage them. With this in mind and taking advantage of a dry forecast, we have put the tiner over them and banged some deep holes into them to help them dry out and firm up. There always come a time during the winter when this has to be done. The holes created go down nearly 16" and will provide drainage channels for the coming spring and summer.

We will follow this up with a quick iron early next week to restore the putting surfaces. If conditions remain dry, I also intend to start top-dressing the greens. Hopefully, following these treatments the greens will be back in play.

We have carried on with the bunker renovation work as well as edging, weeding, cutting and topping up the rest of the bunkers. The renovated bunkers have all had matting installed and have had their faces turfed. When the turf has rooted, we will trim the final shape and fill them with sand. This should take place during early March.

Several other areas have been turfed including some small drainage projects.

Enjoy your golf this weekend.

Mark & The Greens team.

Weekly update

It's getting really boring and depressing writing these updates and making constant reference to the shocking weather conditions.

Sadly, there are still people about who are sort of oblivious to how it impacts on the course and conditions. 

We are trying our best to keep the course open and in as playable a condition as possible. There are many areas on the course that are causing problems, mostly due to the nature of the soils and layout of the course. The holes from the 4th onwards suffer from heavier soil and slower drainage rates. The centre of the course in particular is very wet and slippy. This is the reason play has been restricted to the outer circle for the past few weeks. Even these holes are suffering with mud and standing water evident on heavily played areas. We have been using sand to keep the damage to a minimum, but even our 4X4 vehicles have struggled to travel around the course.

Despite these difficulties, we have still managed to continue our bunker renovation programme. 8 bunkers have been re-shaped and dug out. We have also started installing matting to prevent contamination of the sand from washouts and stones. 4 of the bunkers have now been turfed and more will be completed next week. On the subject of turf, our longstanding turf supplier has lost over 10 acres of turf following the flooding and quality turf is in short supply throughout the country.

Our programme of Fairway aeration is continuing on the drier holes and hopefully will be completed before the start of the season.

Fingers crossed for an improvement in the weather.

Mark & the Greens Team.