Hi all,
I hope you have enjoyed the weather over the past week and have managed to play some golf. The season begins on the 3rd of April, and I just wanted to provide an update on behalf of Robin and the greens staff before the season starts.
The course has taken a battering over the winter, this is due to the fact we have had very mild weather with not a huge amount of rain or snow. This has been fantastic for winter golf with 8143 rounds being played from the 1st of November to the 23rd of March this year. This amount of golf has given the course little time to recover which means a stark difference to last year when the first 3 months of the year were spent in lockdown. The course was also helped by the fact we spent November 2020 in lockdown, meaning a full 4 months of recovery for the course.
Three significant storms have also hindered work and caused major damage to trees across the course. Over the coming weeks this debris will be picked up and a group of volunteers have come forward to assist in this.
However, despite this significant amount of activity and storms the greens staff have managed to complete some major works on the course. This includes the 18th, 15th and 1st green which have had drains added much improving the outlook for the future of winter golf at the club. This drainage should also help keep the course open in the event of wet days in the summer allowing surface water to drain away much quicker.
The 8th green has been a significant project and the work was started by Robin and the team months back, when they had started to dig the drainage into the green, they have found multiple attempts to add drainage in the past making the green unstable. This combined with some bad weather had caused the collapse of the drains making them difficult to repair. However, weeks of hard work by the team has allowed the green to be nearly completed and will be back fully in play by the first couple of weeks in April weather permitting. Again, this work will improve how the course plays moving forward.
Top dressing is due to start on the week commencing the 28th of March and will allow the greens to start to play truer and improve their condition. The grass at the moment is very slow growing which has made it necessary to have fairway mats in use for as long as we have to try and protect the fairways for the start of the season.
As you may have noticed the summer tees have started to be cut and having the winter on the alternative tees have really helped the growth of these and they are all looking in good condition.
I would like to express my thanks to Gideon, Robin and the green keeping team who have worked hard to prepare the course. The work they have done over the winter has set the foundations for a great playing course during the summer.
All the best for the summer season.
Scott