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.

Weekend Update

A busy week with some real progress (at last).

The course had started to dry out nicely, with some cold weather keeping the rain at bay. The snow cleared during Monday and the course was fully open by Wednesday.

We have started our program of bunker renovation. The oldest bunkers have raised faces and the sand is badly contaminated following years of washouts. It is our aim to restore the bunkers to there original design and install a blinding carpet to prevent future issues with contamination. The steepest faces will have the "Bunker Mat" material, while the base of the bunkers will have a more economical material fitted. Some slight alterations will be completed were needed to prevent some drainage issues.

The Air2G2 is still being used weekly on the greens to aid firmness and drainage.

We have also re-surfaced the buggy path on the 5th hole as it has suffered badly during the recent floods.

Next week will see more bunker work and the laying of turf in many small areas around the course.

Fingers crossed the weather stays kind to us all.

Mark & the Greens team.

Weekend Update

Another difficult week weather wise, but it finally looks like we are set for a spell of dry, cold weather. This should help lower the water table in the soil. 

Due to the saturated soil conditions, it has been really difficult to move around the course with equipment, so work has been limited.

The area on the L/H side of the 5th green is particularly bad. The drains in this area have struggled to cope with the volumes of water passing thru them. We have made some small repairs and improvements to them, but drying out will be a slow process. On the plus side, we appear to have improved the washing of sand in the L/H greenside bunker. The new trench will be turfed as soon as possible, but turf is in short supply, again due to conditions in the turf fields.

The wet area on the L/H side of the 15th is drying up nicely, now the drains have been extended and stoned.

As always, the Air2G2 has been out on the greens pumping fresh air into the soil profile. We will continue with this right into the spring to prevent turf die back. The Captain has more info regarding this on his Blog.

We've also spent a lot of time around the clubhouse & Pro's shop, clearing beds and pruning shrubs. The gutters and roof channels have also been cleared of debris.

We also have started the servicing and repair of all our machinery so it is all ready for the start of the season.

With conditions hopefully drying out next week, we have plans to renovate some of the bunkers effected by stones and over-hanging faces. Care will have to be taken to minimise damage while completing this work.  There is also tidying to complete around the 1st tee area and long term the construction of a new path to the ladies tee.

Wrap up warm this weekend, I think its going to be a cold one.

Mark & the Greens team.

Weekend Update

Why are these updates dominated by weather info you may ask? 

I really wish they weren't too, but the weather impacts so much on everything we do and is the controlling factor regarding play on the course.

As you will all be aware, we are in a prolonged spell of record breaking rainfall. Since this spell started around the  5th November, we have had a total of 484mm of the wet stuff! That's a total of 4.8 million litres on the greens alone in 9 weeks!

Its remarkable that up to today (8th Jan) we have only been closed for 5 days.

The conditions have deteriorated over the last week to such an extent that we are no longer able to move around the course without creating damage. Despite wide tyres, 4 wheel drive and keeping to the deep rough.

The greens have held up surprisingly well, only softening during the last 2 weeks. With this in mind, I did manage to apply a liquid micro-nutrient package to them on Monday, which included a product called Roca-stem, which aids water movement thru the soil profile. The tractor did create some wheel marks, which were removed with a quick micro-tine. The surfaces have firmed up very nicely since, but the greens remain saturated.

We also managed to install an interceptor drain between the 5th green and L/H bunker. This should reduce the washout of sand in this bunker. We have also carried out some small drainage work on the L/H side of the 5th green & 15th fairway. Please avoid these areas until they dry out.

As you can imagine, controlling and minimising traffic around the course is vital when conditions are this poor. With this in mind, we have renewed the white lines in front of the greens and put some ropes out to protect vulnerable areas.

If you are in a position to carry your clubs when playing, please do. It really does reduce damage.

Winter wheels are another option, as  this stops electric trolley wheels spinning and smearing the surface.

If you must use your heavy electric trolley, try to reduce its weight and keep away from any obvious wet or muddy areas.

All the above measures will reduce damage and help us keep the course open as much as possible. Your co-operation is greatly appreciated.

Fingers crossed for a change in the weather soon & Happy New Year.

Mark & the Greens team.

Weekend Update.

Following the storms over the weekend, the course was drying out nicely. Todays rain has set things back a bit, but fingers crossed, we should get things tidied up for the weekend.

We have continued to aerate the greens with the Air2G2 as well as moving forward with the fairway and semi aeration. The fairway work will carry on right up to the Christmas break and then start again in the New Year. The winter greens have had a light top-dressing and next week will have some lawn sand applied to help control any moss.

The tree and shrub removal programme continues, with a Silver Birch on the R/H side of the 2nd removed and others pruned. The tree work along the 15th track is now complete and we have tidied things up. The area in front of the 1st tee has had brash & logs removed.

The track to the 15th has also been scraped to remove mud and level the surface. It is planned to carry out more work to the surface when time and money allows.

Work has started on clearing the ditch on the L/H side of the 15th hole. This drain carries a lot of the water from the fairway and has become clogged with branches and silt. This will continue into next week.

Its also been a week of essential machinery servicing. With much used items getting a tune up.

Lets hope the winter league can run smoothly this weekend.

Mark & the Greens team.

Weekend update

Well there was me thinking the weather couldn't get any worse. November left with a deluge, totalling 231.1mm, the 2nd wettest month in 13 years. FYI, August 2004 (Paul Rocca, Capt.) put down 254.2mm!

The course didn't really stand up to it, with rivers of debris being washed over many parts of the course. The greens were the driest areas of the course and were quickly back in play. I put this down to well timed aeration, The use of the Air2G2 machine and some magic potions we apply to the turf.

Our winter work programme has been finalised and we are currently working through the list of projects. This work will of course be weather dependant, but at the moment we are removing selected trees & shrubs, aerating the fairways and completing some small drainage jobs. When the conditions improve we intend to carry out renovation work on some bunkers, re-profile the 5th carry and complete some drainage improvements.

Our winter course protection measures came into force on the 1/12/15, with fairway mats now compulsory in selected areas. Some ropes have been placed in sensitive areas to control traffic, but it is hoped to minimise their use thru the winter. With this in mind, can I remind golfers to keep behind the white lines as this will reduce wear & tear around our short cut playing surfaces.

As mentioned last week, pitch marks are slow to recover at this time of year and do cause bumpy putting surfaces. Please be aware of this when playing the course.

Have a good weekend.

Mark & the Greens team.