Week 1 of the Men's Champs

That is the first week of the Men's Championships over. The course held up pretty well and with the wind particularly on Sunday there were not many low scores. The greens were slightly slower than was planned as the green staff were only able to single cut the greens due to a break down of one of the greens mowers on Thursday. With the windy conditions though this was maybe not a bad thing. Ryan, who cut the greens both mornings would have been up super early starting at around 5 am each morning to keep ahead of the field on both 9s. The plan is to double cut each morning next weekend if we can get the second greens mower back in action.

I went around each morning and had a look at the bunkers before play and still noticed most of the rakes had been placed on the edge/slopes of the bunkers. Can players please place the rakes back in the flat of the bunker so that it can't trap a players ball on the slope of the bunker. Can we all work in educating our playing partners each week to put the rakes back in the flat of the bunker. (This is one of my pet hates if you hadn't noticed)

The Thursday crew have continued the pruning of low branches. They have started on the 1st, 10th and 2nd holes. This helps in maintenance enabling the mowers to get around the base of the trees more easily and helps speed up play with less looking for balls. This also helps with the health of the trees and opens up the areas beneath to encourage grass growth. The group will focus on the couple of groups of Casuarinas along the edge of the dam on the 18th hole. These have become large and block the view of the dam. They are also difficult to mow around. The low branches on these will be pruned and the groups thinned out a little to make mowing around then much easier and enable some view of the dam. You will have also noticed that a number of trees on the right of the 6th down to the dam have been pruned and some trees removed so that you can see the dam from the tee and see balls going into the water.

The hazard margin behind the 6th green has been brought in to the edge of the track and a drop zone placed on the bank at the back of the green. The drop zone can be used if you need to take a penalty drop from the hazard or you can play the ball as it lies without grounding your club if in the hazard.