Green maintenance

The greens have experience a lot of growth recently due to the rain and ideal growing temperatures. Here is a bit of a run down on the weekly program for the greens which is also dependant on the weather (rain mainly).

• Mowed 6 days a week at 3.2 mm (usually not mowed on Sunday)
• Groomed on Thursday and Friday each week whilst mowing - the groomers are attached to the front of the greens mower reels and slice the grass slightly to remove a bit of the grass thickness - this encourages growth and helps smooth the greens
• Light top dressing - this was done a couple of weeks ago to help reduce thatch, smooth out the greens and increase firmness slightly - we will look at doing this again in the next couple of weeks

Hopefully we don't get too much rain overnight so that we can let the greens dry out a little - this will help increase the speed of the greens and reduce the size of pitch marks. Pitch marks are a major issue causing balls to bump around and thus slowing the green down. Light topdressing will help fill these pitch marks. Can players also be vigilant in fixing any pitch mark they notice on the greens as this will help keep the greens smoother for everyone.

Fixing paths and bunkers

In the last few weeks the green staff have been fixing a number of the ends of paths. This is to stop the gravel from the paths continually washing onto the start of the fairways. Some couch grass has been acquired and this is being used to turf some of these areas. Paths that have been attended to so far are the 16th, 7th, 8th and 4th. A number of others will also be fixed where gravel washing onto the start of the fairway is an issue.

The paths and bunkers have taken a beating over the last couple of weeks with 2 solid downpours of around 40 mm each which have washed out paths and turned bunkers into swimming pools. The amount of time spent attending to the paths and bunkers has been huge over the last couple of months with a number of large downpours over the Christmas period. Looks like there is more rain on the way tonight. Let's hope it isn't too much.

Path on the 7th