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.