New Cups

Cam has just installed new cups in the greens which look to be helping the hole keep it's shape a little more. To also help with keeping the edges of the hole sharp I ask if players could pick the ball out of the hole carefully and not use their putter to flick it out as I have seen before. If you see anyone doing this can you ask them to stop as it can damage the hole. Cam also had to install a new fitting on the flag stick to fit into the new cups.

With this hot weather upon us the boys are spending extra time fixing sprinklers and broken pipes to try to keep the course as green as possible.

We have a new greens and grounds committee headed up by myself. The committee is:

Simon Miels (Director Golf)
Cambell Griggs (Course Superintendent)
Rod Drayton
Heather Millar
Elaine Wilson
Bill Miller
Rob Bendle

Please feel free to speak to any of the committee if you have any feedback or leave some comments on the blog that everyone will be able to see.

Have a great Christmas!!!

Rain

We receive around 77 mm of rain from Friday night through to Tuesday morning this week which has helped green the rough up a bit and filled our dams. We had gone around 2 months with very little rain and this was much needed. The bottom dam has been overflowing since the rain and the main dam is within around half a metre from the overflow pipe. The course has now dried significantly and will be firm for the weekends golf. The staff have spent a lot of time draining water from the bunkers and these should be back in reasonable condition for the weekend also.

In the growing season the staff spend much of their time cutting grass. Below is a bit run done of the cutting program.

• Greens - cut 6 days a week at 3 mm
• Fairways - cut twice per week at 14 mm
• Greens collars and aprons - cut twice per week at 12 mm
• Tees - cut twice per week at 12 mm
• Long greens surrounds and first cut of rough around fairways - cut once a week at around 32 mm
• Secondary rough around fairways and tee carries - cut once a week at around 60-65 mm.
• Remainder of rough cut at the same height as the secondary rough on an as needs basis - this is usually about once very 2 weeks when it is growing
• Bunkers - raked twice per week with mechanical bunker rake

Poll results

Well the results of the poll on the site are nearly in. With a grand total of 7 votes 2 for a bit slow, 3 for about right and 2 for a bit quick I conclude that they are about right.

The course is getting a bit dry and hopefully we receive some good rain over the next few days as predicted.

Snooze Championships

Well, we have had the first week of the champs and and the course is looking in super condition for the event. The greens were running nicely with some of those down hill puts requiring a bit of attention. There were some pretty good scores on the Saturday with the course fighting back on Sunday with a few harder pin positions and firm fast greens. The greens will be double cut again each morning at 3 mm and should provide a good challenge. A few pictures of the course below. Click on the picture for a larger view.

You may have noticed a few green/blue lines around the margins of a number of the fairways. This is to indicate the fairway mowing lines. The general guidelines for the fairways are:

• Average width of around 25 metres – allowing for some narrower areas and wider areas depending on the hole and the distance from the tee (landing zones), Effective fairway watering is achieved in the area between the fairway sprinklers. In dry conditions any fairway outside this area will not receive adequate water to provide a quality surface. Our fairway sprinklers are currently 20-22 metres apart.
• Keep the fairways on the flat areas that had been designated as fairway – allow first rough cut to be on flat ground also
• Avoid bare areas caused by trees and tree roots
• Emphasise the shape of hole encouraging players to play a certain line especially on holes that have a dogleg
• Rough around bunkers - we are also providing and area of rough around the fairway and green side bunkers as the grass is often of poor quality close to the edge on the bunkers.

Club Championships

The course is in top shape for the club champs starting this weekend. The greens were dusted (light top dress) again on Monday to help smooth the surface and are now being cut at 3 mm which is the normal growing season height of cut. We have also been grooming the greens over the past couple of weeks to thin the grass and smooth the surface. Groomers are vertical blades that are mounted on the front of the greens mower just ahead of the cutting reels and slice into the grass canopy standing the grass up allowing more grass to be taken off the greens. The greens will be double cut on both Saturday and Sunday morning prior to play and should be slightly quicker and rolling more smoothly than in previous weeks.

All other shortly mown areas such as fairways, tees and collars and aprons of greens are being mown twice per week and have come up well after the renovations. The growth on the front 9 fairways is excellent and these have responded well after the renovation.

With the recent strong winds we have lost a number of trees and branches. Staff and volunteers have been working to clean up a lot of this and lets hope that the winds drop soon so we don't lose too many more trees.

Good luck to everyone playing over the next 2 weeks.

Course Update

I played today and noted that the fairways and greens are coming along well after the renovations. The back 9 greens were lightly top dressed on Tuesday to help fill the remaining core holes and the front 9 will be done in the next couple of days. The growth on the green is excellent and they are thickening up well. The greens are currently being cut at 4 mm down from 5 mm straight after the renovation. Next week the cutting heights will be lowered to the normal growing season height of 3.2 mm.

After the renovation the front 9 fairways have thickened up well with most of the bare areas now covered with grass. With the rain and warm weather the growth is significant and mowing fairways twice per week is barely enough to keep on top of things. The fairways are back to being mowed at 14 mm which is down from the 18 mm that they were mowed at straight after the renovation. Cam is considering spraying the fairways with a growth retardant to slow the growth a little. This is common practice on the greens during the growing season when the greens can grow significantly throughout the day.

With just over 80 mm of rain recorded over a few days early last week the 2 main dams are now at capacity. This rain has also given the course a good soak and helped kick the growth of the rough along. The rough is just started to thicken up and is now proving some penalty when missing the fairway. I have noticed that the scores are now starting to come down and we need the thicker rough to help provide some defence for the course. The rain has also compacted the old bunkers (un-renovated) and significant work will be done on the bunkers in the next week to get them into reasonable condition before the spring classic.

Please send through any questions or ideas that you may have about what you would like me to cover in future posts.

Renovations nearly complete

The bulk of the renovations are now complete with the front nine fairways, tees, green surrounds, aprons and this week the greens all renovated. These areas have all been cored, scarified, fertilised and top dressed with the tees, fairways and aprons also being seeded with rye grass. With the warm weather at the moment these areas should only take a few weeks to recover so that the course is in top shape for the Spring Classic and the Club Championships. The boys have put in quite a few extra hours in the past couple of weeks to get the job done. Below I have included a few photos so you can see what has been going on. You can click on the images to get a larger view.

3rd fairway after coring and scarifying

Borrowed corer in action on the 6th fairway

Again heading up towards the 6th tee

Cores on the 6th fairway

5th fairway after topdressing, sprinklers on in the background

9th fairway after topdressing

9th green showing the core sapcing

More 9th green

And again

Course renovations in full swing

The course renovations are now in full swing. The tees, greens collars and aprons have now all been cored, scarified, fertilised, seeded and top dressed. The greens staff have now started on the fairways. We plan to renovate the front 9 fairways now and look at the back 9 in Autumn or Spring next year depending and our financial situation. The process is similar to the tees and surrounds where the fairway is cored and scarified and then the bulk of the cores are blown off to the edges of the fairway using a blower where they can be dispersed by a rough cutter. The fairways will then be fertilized and seeded with Rye grass seed and finally top dressed. The top dressing is quite a large project and we do not have the machinery to complete this job and it will be therefore carried out by a contractor. The top dressing with the be rubbed into the holes and grass profile as much as possible with the front 9 back in play for Saturday's comp. Over the next couple of weeks we will also be irrigating the fairways, tees and surrounds to help the seed germinate. There therefore may be a need to irrigate during the day for a short period to keep the soil moist and promote germination.

Then next week we will be renovating the greens. This is the major greens renovation where we use large hollow tines to get as much top dressing into the soil profile as possible. The greens will be therefore slow and sandy for the next few weeks and enable us to get them back into top shape before the Spring Classic and then the club championships. Keep on swinging!!!!

PS. Don't forget to fix your pitch marks on the renovated greens as they will be softer after renovation and prone to pitch marks.

More bunker work

The bunker on the 14th hole has now been completed and is in play. The turf around the bunker is still GUR as this area had been re-turfed when finalising the bunker shape. The same process as usual was used on this bunker with the removal of all the old sand and drainage lines. This bunker was then widened by around 2 metres with about 30 cm of this taken off the face to reduce the slope to the green and help the sand hold on the face of the bunker. A small lip was created on the green side to reduce the amount of surface run off from rain and the sprinkler system. The back lip of the bunker was also raised to improve the visibility of the bunker from the fairway. Once the shaping and clean out was complete new drainage lines were cut into the floor and the new drainage lines installed. Bunker mat then installed on the steep faces of the bunker and shade cloth over the drainage lines. Nearly done, new sand, turf replace around the edges and trench to take water away from the bunker filled and it is all complete.

We will now start on the bunker on the left of the 8th hole. The floor of this will be raised to enable easier access for the bunker rake. The bulk of the tongue on the fairway side will be removed to enlarged the bunker and allow for easier and more effective raking. The front lip will be raised also to improve visibility from the fairway.

We are also looking for a volunteer out there that might be interested in raking the bunkers on Monday or Tuesday each week before the Tuesday and Wednesday comps. Bill Miller has been doing this for quite a while and is now not able to. The bunkers had improved significantly with 2 rakes per week and we are keen to continue this practice to provide better playing conditions for all. This could be done by one person or a group on a rotational basis. If you are interested please contact myself, Cam or Warren. Cam will provide all the training and advise needed. You can also speak to Bill if you would like to know more.

14th bunker with mat in place on the face of the bunker

Erosion around dams

As many of you may have seen in emails from the club we are embarking on a process of growing or in some cases re-growing grasses around the edges of our dams to reduce erosion. The grasses will help stabilise the the soil and provide a barrier to reduce the flow of water into the dams after heavy rain. In the past we had mowed a lot of this grass to the edge of the dam so that golfers could find their ball more easily. If you look at the banks around the dam at the 5th you will notice that there is a thick barrier of grass in many places which has helped reduce erosion and hence there is very little erosion around this dam.

The carp in the main dam may also be contributing to the erosion as they look to feed into the softer soil around the edges of the dam when the dam is near full. We will also be looking to reduce the numbers of these significantly and are exploring the best way to achieve this. Below is a map of the dam showing areas that grasses will be re-grown. Click on the map to expand the image.

Bunker work

The renovation of the left bunker on the 4th has been completed. The base of this bunker was raised to enable access for players and the bunker rake. The back lip was raised slightly to improve visibility from the tee and the abrupt slope on the turf on the green side has been remedied to improve playability and make it easier to mow effectively. As with the other bunkers that we have renovated all the old sand was removed down to the clay base and with this bunker additional clay was brought in to raise the base. Then the new drainage pipe installed, bunker mat pinned to the faces and new sand brought in. Turf was then placed around the edges and the bunker brought back into play.

Completed bunker on the 4th

Work has now begun on the bunker on the 14th hole. This bunker has been widened by around 2 metres to enable more effective raking. Around 30 cm has been taken off the face to lessen the slope of the face of the bunker. This will reduce erosion from the face and help sand stay on the face more easily. The base of the bunker will also be flattened to provide a better playing surface. This bunker previously had a slope from the green side and balls would often roll near the back edge making it difficult to play a shot. The new shaping of this bunker should help remedy this problem.

Bunker on 14 during renovation

Greens and Grounds Committee members

Who are the members of the greens and grounds committee:

The committee comprises of:

Simon Miels - Chair

Cambell Griggs - Course Superintendent

Alwyn Carlson

Bill Miller

Heather Millar

Rod Drayton

Ron Merritt

Willie Tyhouse

We encourage members to speak with any of the committee with comments or if you require any information about what is going on around the course. We will try to provide information to members about what is going on on your course. The bulk of this will be via this site. I am also looking for a place in the club that we can display news from the site for those member that do not access the site.

You can also leave comments on this site at the end of each article.

What’s happening with the bunkers!!

The bunkers at Murrumbidgee and in the general Canberra region have long been a talking point amongst golfers. The bunkers at Murrumbidgee have been built and renovated over the last twenty odd years. As a result of different design and construction methods we now have bunkers with all manner of characteristics. However most of these characteristics attract negative criticisms. Bunkers in the Canberra region, not just Murrumbidgee, attract their fair share of criticism such as:

• too much sand
• too little sand
• wrong type of sand
• wrong shape
• they are like concrete
• can’t get in or out of easily
• full of water

The main cause of all these criticisms is that they are built in clay. The main problems start when it rains or the sprinkler system hits them, silt from the clay comes mainly off the walls and from the surrounding areas. The silt then sits on top of the sand, fills in the gaps in the sand and forms a hard crust, thus resulting in the concrete bunkers everyone knows and loves. Adding sand to the bunkers to overcome this is a very short term fix, in as little as six months or the next heavy rainfall they can become crusted and hard again. While people don’t believe it, there is sand underneath this crust, usually lots of it, 10 to 20 cm on average. Even if we dig or till this back to life, because this is a mixture of silt and sand, this again turns hard very quickly. All of this adds up to a maintenance and logistical nightmare.

We have developed new design and construction techniques to address these problems. These techniques were first used on the two bunkers on the 1st hole. These were further refined when the bunker on the right hand side of the 13th was renovated. These changes have reduced maintenance and significantly improved playability, especially after rain.

Currently, after heavy or prolonged periods of rain, we have to spend significant amount of man hours to ‘repair’ or make the existing bunkers playable. The new bunkers have required no extra maintenance after recent heavy rains. The water has drained away as fast as it fell. The main changes we have made are to reduce the amount of water that enters the bunkers, flatten the bases and use a new type of drainage. This has not just aided in making a more playable and consistent surface but has reduced maintenance and ongoing costs.

The main changes are:

• steeper bunker walls (this ensures that the ball always rolls to the bottom of the bunker)
• raise the bunker walls/edges to create a water flow around the bunker, not in to the bunker
• ensure that the bunkers are visible from a distance where possible (by raising the walls this assists in making a visual deterrent and adding a reference point for players)
• raise and flatten the bases (by raising the height of the walls players do not realise that the bases have been raised)
• use a new flat drainage system which is easier and cheaper to install than previous drainage techniques
• use new membranes on the banks to stop the transfer of silt into the bunkers
• change the entry and exit points to allow easy access for players and course machinery 
• increase the size of the bunkers to allow access and maintenance by course machinery

This winter we are focussing on the renovating the 2 bunkers on the 4th, 2 bunkers on the 8th and the left hand bunkers on the 13th hole. Each winter we will continue the renovation program until all bunkers in need of renovation are complete. With the new techniques used and some slight redesign we are confident that the bunkers will remain in good shape for many years to come.

Bunker work on the 4th

Green staff have begun work on renovating the bunkers on the 4th hole the back bunker clean out has begun. As with many bunkers these do not drain well and the back bunker is difficult to get the bunker rake out of after being raked. The base of this bunker will be raised slightly to enable better access to the bunker rake and then re-drained and new sand added. The small slope on the green side will also be lessened to enable it to me mown more effectively as this slope is now too abrupt. Green staff will move onto renovating the 2 bunkers on the 8th hole after the 4th hole is complete. Photos of the work done so far are below.

We have had some comment recently about the relocation of the 17th tee. The main reason for doing this is to provide greater variety in distance on our par 3 holes on the course. We currently have 3 very long par 3s that many players are hitting a hybrid or wood into many occasions. The hole is to be shortened so that it is slightly longer than the 4th hole so that most players can hit in a mid to long iron. The reason for the placement behind the ladies tee is so that the bunker on the right comes more into play allowing for more pin placements behind the bunkers as is the case for the ladies. The front of the ladies tee will also be expanded to incorporate the teeing area for the green tees. There is more information about the tee in the January postings.

Drainage - back of 10th green

An area at the back of the 10th green/surround is being drained as it is constantly wet after rain and watering of the green. An area of turf has been removed on the green and the surround and sub-surface drainage will be installed with the area. This will then drain along the trench through the bank to a sump on the outer side of the bank. A large amount of thatch had built up not allowing the water to drain into the soil. With the drainage and new soil and turf this area should be improve drastically.

Over the winter we will be focussing on continuing our bunker renovation program starting with the bunkers on the 4th and 8th holes. We have also started dumping some fill in the area where the new 17th tee is to be built. A number of the paths will also get some attention over the coming months.

Bunker work

As part of our bunker plan we had identified 2 bunkers that could be filled in to reduce maintenance and where they added little strategic value to the hole. These 2 bunkers are the first of the 3 fairway bunkers on the 3rd hole. This bunker has been filled and levelled to form part of a mound that it was cut into. Once settled this will be seeded and returned to rough grass. The back left bunker on the 18th green is also being filled in and the area will return to a grassed bank. This area is irrigated and will be grassed to rough length from around 4-5 metres from the edge of the green to help stop stray balls from rolling too far from the green.

Over winter we will be also renovating a number of bunkers with shaping, drainage and new sand. There will be more on what is planned over the next few weeks. Below are photos of work being done on the bunker on the 18th.

Pipeline and pump operational

Pipeline Handover. Historic Event. Last Tuesday (5 March) the Works committee fired up the river pump and tested it before the official handover. Now it's ready to see us through the next drought. Pictured holding the return pipe at the 5th dam is Ron Shepherd, Ray Miller, Fred MacDonald, Warren James and Vince Patulney.

(Text and photos from the Murrumbidgee Facebook page)

Course update

The boys have been busily getting the course in ship shape for the open this weekend. The bunkers have all now been line trimmed and weeds on faces sprayed. We have also installed some new tines on the bunker rake that are able to rake the sand a little deeper. With the new tines and the dry weather the bunkers are now in pretty good shape.

Some of the paths have been repaired filling in the pot holes and topping up the granite where needed. The spot spraying of the paspalum has now ceased with the onset of some cold morning. We will do this again next summer of tees, fairways and greens surrounds to try and keep this weed at bay. The paspalum will now go into dormancy and be hardly noticeable over the colder months.

Some areas on greens surrounds and fairways have been renovated lightly of the last few weeks and some seed has been put down. You will notice some of this seed germinating already especially around the greens. These areas are currently GUR as noted on the local rules board on the pro shop wall.

The greens have now been groomed for the past week or so and are no running a bit quicker. Groomers are small scarifier blades on the greens mowers that stand the grass up and groom some grass out of the surface. The groomers help thin the grass and smooth the surface slightly creating a smoother roll. The groomers will be lifted for the mowing on the weekend and the greens will be double cut both mornings. The water has now be cut back with the cooler weather with only hand watering of the greens where needed before the weekend.

Pitch marks are becoming an issue again and now with limited growth on the greens poorly repaired or pitch marks not repair at all will take a long time to recover. For those of you that read this can you spread the word about how to fix a pitch mark correctly and try to fix at least 2 each green. If we all did this there would be no pitch marks at all.

We have now had the new mower for mowing the first cut of rough around fairways, greens surrounds and tee surrounds for around a month and you hopefully will have notice an improvement in these surfaces with a more even cut and little to now scalping of the banks. The mower is currently cutting  at around 32 mm.

Garden bed revamped

The garden bed behind the white tee on the 7th hole has been revamped will the weeds and stray plants removed. This area has been mulched with 3 deciduous trees planted that should provide some shade when mature and reduce the maintenance of this area.

The Thursday volunteer group stocks are dwindling with a few regulars turning up. If you would like to volunteer some time to help out on the course there are regular groups on Tuesday and Thursday each week or provide some help sitting on a mower for a few hours. Contact myself, Cam or Warren if you are interested in helping out.

A couple of the boys hard at it last Thursday

The Casuarinas behind the 9th tee are getting to a height where they are starting to provide a wind break to the dam and tee. These were propagated many years ago from seeds collected on the course. I have spoken to Alwyn and he is not sure what variety they are but from observations over the last 10 years they appear to be a low/slow growing variety. You will notice that there are 2 distinct plants in the rows. One has a redish colour and the other has masses of seeds. These are apparently the male and the female variety of the plant. With the prevailing wind coming from the NW these were planted to provide a wind break to the dam to help reduce evaporation from the surface of the dam.

Tree pruning

Volunteers continue to do a great job pruning low branches on trees and cleaning up sticks around trees that have been there for years. Recently trees along the side of the short range have been pruned which opens the area up significantly and looks great. This will also allow green staff to mow closer to the base of the trees and improve the look even further. Less long grass around our trees also helps speed up play with less places for balls to get lost. Branches on a number of the large gum trees on the right of the 18th fairway have also been pruned and this has really improved the look of this area also. Great job by all those involved.

Right of the 18th fairway looking toward the green

Same spot looking away from the green with the branches and sticks piled up

Mower arrives

We have acquired a demo model Toro 3500D to replace the Toro Flail that we were using to mower around the banks of our greens/tees the first cut of rough and around green side and fairway bunkers. This mower will also be used to mow areas around the 2 putting greens and areas near the clubhouse. As you can see from the photos below the mower has 3 floating rotary decks allowing it to follow the contours of the ground and produce a much more even cut. The mower will also allow us to mow closer to the edges of bunkers and is a little wider which will save us some time mowing these areas. With our previous mowers that we used for this task you would have noticed some areas on banks scalped and other were the grass was 3 inches long. This should improve the quality of these surfaces markedly providing more consistent lies around the greens and first cut around each fairway.

Cam mowing around the back of the 14th green

Greens renovated

The greens have been renovated and after a day and being rubbed in twice they are looking pretty good. This renovation was much less aggressive than the spring renovation. We used a Verti-drain machine with thin solid tines causing less disruption to the surface. Fertiliser and around half the sand of the major renovation was then applied and rubbed in. After a couple more days with some growth and watering the sand should be well into the grass canopy.

In the next couple of weeks we will attack some of the areas of the fairways that died off as a result of the hot weather through January. These areas will be cored, scarified, seeded and top dressed lightly so that we can get a good cover of grass back on our fairways before winter.

There have been a number of valves getting stuck on over recent months causing areas of the course to be flooded on occasions. This is mainly due to grit and slime (technical term) that is pumped from the dam getting into the valves and causing them to stick on. Since the recent rains we are pumping cleaner water as the dam depth has increased. With this and the cleaning of a number of the problem valves we should see less of this in the future.

As part of our bunker plan we are also looking at filling and grassing bunkers that are hard to maintain and provide little strategic value to the hole. At this stage we have identified the back left bunker on the 18th green and the first of the 3 fairway bunkers on the 3rd hole. Both of these will be filled and grassed in the coming months.

18th green on Monday afternoon

Close-up of the 18th - same time as above

18th green 2 days later

Course Update

Recent rain has put greened up the course significantly over the past number of weeks. It has also topped up our supply of water as the main dam was getting very low towards the end of January. Our current supply of water will now get us through to next spring without significant rainfall. The heavy rain has however caused damage to our bunkers with further soil being washed off the faces of the bunkers and further contaminating the sand. Significant work will need to be done in the next couple of weeks to get the bunkers back into a reasonable shape.

The greens staff will continue our maintenance program this winter renovating and re-shaping the worst of the bunkers. Last winter 3 bunkers were completely renovated and this winter we plan to increase this number. This program will continue until all poor draining and shaped bunkers are renovated. The back left bunker on the 18th will be filled in as it requires considerable ongoing maintenance and adds little strategic value to the hole. This area will be turned into a grassy swale which will create a challenge when chipping up to a green that is sloping away from the player.

The greens will be renovated starting on Monday 18th March. The greens will be Verti-drained with solid tines smaller than the hollow tines that were used in the spring renovation. This renovation will be less disruptive to play as the holes will be smaller and less top dressing will be applied. Starting Monday the greens will be scarified, Verti-drained, fertilized and top dressed. The top dressing is then brushed into the holes each day for the remainder of the week.

You may have noticed that the garden beds on the second hole have now been removed and grass banks re-installed. This will reduce maintenance and enhance the attractiveness of this area. Other poorly maintained and difficult to maintain garden beds will also be removed for the same reason. The small garden bed behind the 7th white tee has now also been removed and this area will be grassed to reduce maintenance. A number of our volunteers have been instrumental in doing this work and continue to do a great job for the club.

Bunkers

Drainage pipe laid flat in a shallow trench

Everyone's favourite topic. Over the last 2 winters we have begun to renovate our bunkers. This renovation program will continue each winter with new drainage, re-shaping and new sand added. The main problem with the bunkers is the poor drainage. Over time drains become blocked, soil/silt is washed into bunkers contaminating the sand and not allowing water to drain away quickly. With the use of the new drainage pipe we are able to put the drains in quicker as no trenching is required and no gravel needed.

Due to this sand/soil mix in the bunkers and compaction due to heavy rain many of the bunkers become very firm and difficult to play a normal bunkers shot from.

Soil washed into a bunker on the 9th hole

So, there is a different technique for playing from a firm bunker. Considering the following advice next time you are in a firm bunker.

• play the ball a little further back in your stance than you would for the “normal” bunker shot
• set up a little more square to the target line
• aim to enter the sand around 1 inch behind the ball rather than the normal 2 inches
• hit the shot a little softer than normal as it will come out little quicker
• try using a club with less bounce than the normal sand iron as you don't want the club to bounce on the hard sand

My best advice is however, try to avoid them, they are hazards. Most of us would probably find it easier to hit a chip from the grass than play a bunker shot.

Good luck and happy golfing!!!

Huge Storms

Last night we had around 60 mm of rain in some large thunder storms. The rain was much needed as we had not had significant rainfall for some time our stocks in the dams were getting quite low. The dam at the 5th is now full and the main dam is around 4 feet from full. The rain has also given the entire course a good soak with many of the fairways suffering with the extreme hot weather.

The course seems to have held up quite well with the bunkers the exception. Many of the bunkers have considerable water in them and quite a bit of damage has been done with sand and soil washed off the faces. The bunkers will require considerable work now to get them back up to scratch. We have also lost most of a large gum tree in the garden bed near the second putting green. A large branch has fallen across the path to the 10th tee blocking the path.

Tree on path to 10th

More tree

And more ....

Bunker on the 9th

Damage to bunker the 9th

Water coming from the dam behind the 15th into the main dam

Another angle of the pipe from the 15th

Overflow pipe out of the main dam