Dear All, Well we finally got the rain !!!

I hoped you all enjoyed the Captains away day, sorry i could not be there but i had an appointment with Mr. VanGerwan and Mr. Taylor last night that was an amazing experience.

What a difference a bit of moisture makes to the course! All the seed and fertiliser that has been put out the last few weeks waiting for the rain has now started kicking lovely. Over the next few days we will see a massive ‘green up’ and growth spurt. We are very confident the course will keep improving now we have had some decent rain.
This does mean for a few days we will have issues with grass clippings owing to wet cuts, but an issue i and the Greenstaff are happy to have !

The greens were very wet after the deluge of rain the last couple of days, and we were unable to cut them this morning. This does mean they maybe a little slow today and possibly over the weekend.
Many people have been reporting that the greens have been playing great the last few weeks which is good to hear considering we have not ramped up the work on them yet.
On monday the greens will be aerated, verti-cut, topdressed and fed.
They will also receive a fungicide as there is a fair bit of disease about owing to the humid wet conditions. We will then now start reducing the greens and other areas to their ‘summer height of cut’
over the next few days.

Please remember to rake bunkers if you go in them and to repair your pitchmarks, it really does make a difference.

Enjoy your Course, its yours remember!

Regards

Geoff
Course Manager

What crazy weather we have!

We have just had over two months of no rain and rather pleasant temperatures of 20 degrees, but as I write this it’s now May, drizzling and it’s about 10 degrees! Who would be a Greenkeeper!

The weather certainly keeps us busy and stressed, hopefully, one day, we will be able to control it.

We have, as promised by the club, been repairing and patching up the parts of the irrigation system we can, but that is creating in places new issues! Lol Green, Lesley Allsuch and myself have been meeting with Irrigation companies and suppliers getting everything ready for the new installation commencing August all things going to plan. More details of this once things have been decided.

Just to keep you all up to date with the course. Despite being very dry we are really pleased with the way the course is coming back.  The overseeding of the fairways and other areas, whilst would benefit from more rain, are slowly germinating. We have where possible carried out some watering and whilst this has not been great, now with the added rain we are experiencing things are starting to grow. We will be applying fairway fertilizer this week and the benefits will be seen once the temperatures return a little.

On the subject of fairways I would like to thank ‘THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN’ members, who generously came to help with divoting the fairways. It was brilliant to see members help to improve their course. Also to the ‘FAMOUS FIVE’ that turned up Thursday but we had to unfortunately postpone. It was a shame that a few more did not turn up, especially the few that complain about the lack of divoting at times. 

We have a few to finish still and therefore so nobody feels like they missed out the chance to spend a few hours with the Greenstaff!! We are having another session on Thursday 11th May, (next Thursday) to finish them off.  Please let myself, Lol Green or the office if you want to help, it really is appreciated.

The greens are running pretty good for this time of year and we now intend to start bringing them up to summer condition, they will receive on Monday some heavy verti-cutting, a feed followed by a top dressing. We will then commence our planned programme of little and often spiking, feeding, verti-cutting, grooming, topdressing and ironing.

Lol and myself are experimenting with some different heights of cut on rough, semi rough and greens surrounds. We are now working on getting the practice green back in play and also finishing off the 9th bunkers.

Hope you are all enjoying your golf and the weather warms up, but pray for a few more showers yet please!

Regards,

Geoff
Course Manager