We have come out last year from a very dry, hot summer into a very wet end to the year, we had 3 times more rain fall in October to December than the rest of the year combined. We obviously have an amazing, drying site which had brought many golfer from other courses to play on here.
The start of this year has been mostly cold and frosty, this has allowed us to work on lots of scrub areas around the course to help improve the ability to find a slightly wayward shot and keep the speed of play moving smoothly. These areas have sensitively picked and only where play is higher, we have been conscious to leave areas for the diverse wildlife we have around our course.
Now the weather has been a bit kinder to us, we have been able to apply some slow release fertilisers to help the turf stay strong and healthy, taking us into the spring, you may have been able to smell it last week! We have now been able to get the Terra Spike out and have spiked the greens with a thin 10mm tine at a depth of 6 inches. This alleviates the tension and compaction in the surface which builds up with the high volumes of play, it also allows air and water to transfer though the soil and make it available for the plant and promote the roots to develop further down into the rootzone. This will continue in the spring where we do our essential maintenance, this will involve hollow coring, scarifying, topdressing and fertiliser to provide us with a superior surface to play on through the season.
We have tried to keep moving traffic around the course and avoid too much wear in certain areas. By utilising the vast teeing space we have and placing the yellow markers across the white and red tees we can protect the main yellow tees for the spring. We will continue to work hard on these areas and keep the grass coverage to a good level and the presentation looking well.
As you will see, we have a great new patio built at the clubhouse, this will give us a lovely outside space which we have a nice new marquee to cover it. We will also be doing some work around this with a gravel area for the picnic benches and a new path to reduce the wear from the 18th to the clubhouse and refreshing the pathway from the carpark to the 1st tee. This will really catch the eye when approaching the Golf Course.
Please say hello when you are out on the course and most of all continue to enjoy your golf!
