Dear members

It’s been a couple of months since my last course newsletter as things have been very busy with grass growth.

Staff-We have been one man short for the past 8 weeks with Adam recuperating after his knee operation. Adam is now back at work and we are back up to full strength soon after.Our apprentice, Josh Marshall, is currently doing his level 2 in sports turf maintenance and has recently qualified for the final of the Toro Young Student Greenkeepers’ of the year. The final will take place in September at BIGGA HQ so fingers crossed Josh goes all the way and wins this 🤞

Steps-The new steps on the 1st and 3rd tees are now in places and I am sure you will agree they are a big improvement! A handrail is being made for the first tee and will be installed as soon as it is ready.

Fairways-A new approach with our fairway program has seen us applying wetting agent and seaweed each month to retain moisture in the soil. This is definitely helping to keep the fairways looking green even during some very hot recent temperatures.

Tee-Hand mowing the tees this year is giving them some much needed presentations, however, the recent hot dry weather has hit them quite hard as there is still no automatic irrigation. To combat

this the team have spent a lot of time during the last two weeks hand watering and they have now greened back up.The men’s 11th tee is one of the smallest tees on the course and has been really struggling. Last week this was taken out of play so we can scarify, overseen, top dress and feed it. As soon as the seed germinates, the markers will be back on it.

Tee Irrigation-We are going to install irrigation sprinklers to the 1st tee during the next few weeks subject the weather.

16th Bunker-As many of you will have noticed, badgers and rabbits have taken a real liking to the dry sandy soil around the back of the bunker surround left of the 16th green, especially after the turf suffered during last.

This area has now been dressed out with around 100mm if clay topsoil and reseeded. The area is now GUR until the seed has germinated.

New Addition-The club has taken delivery of a new Jacobsen LF550 fairway mower this week. This is a year earlier than planned but the deal on this machine was very good with the Club making a saving of over 25k by buying this one-off machine now.

Other Tasks Planned-The following tasked are planned to be done over the next month as and when we get chance to do them.

Cut back the conifer hedge to the left of the 3rd hole.Cut all hedges around the course and car park.Carry on dressing the public footpath that runs across the course from the 1st tee to the 11th fairway with red stone.Dig out and repair the damaged drainage on the 7th hole.Spraying off weeds and grass cover in all paths.Installing a water pipe to the water fountain next to the 13th tee.

Thank you’s-I just like to say thank you to a couple of people for helping us out.Mark Davis, Mark Groves and Wayne Muller for their help in looking after their areas around the club house and first tee.

Members Course Walk-Have you ever wanted to know how the Greens team do their job! Well this is your chance.On Tuesday 20th at 2pm we will be doing a course walk with a group of members. This will be a group of no more than 25 members and will last around 2 hours. Any members wishing to be part of this walk will be able to put their names up on a booking sheet in the club house. There will be some other chances during September if you cannot make this date.