First of all, I would like to thank the Greens Staff for all the hard work they have done this season. It’s been another busy season on The Links and much credit goes to the team for all the early mornings and hours they do at weekends to make sure you all enjoy your game of golf.
We had a bit of everything this summer, starting the season with one of the coldest springs I’ve experienced since I’ve been here. This year to date, we are up 179mm of rain compared to this time last year. This has helped with recovery of divot mix on tees and fairways.
The plan for this summer was to firm up the greens and help improve the rootzone in the greens. One of the main things we did this year was to keep irrigation to the bare minimum. Greens were watered 8-10 times, and fairways and tees were watered 6-8 times. Reducing the amount of irrigation on the greens combined with regular nail tinning and verti-cutting has improved their firmness this season, which showed with the small amount of scaring from wrongly repaired Pitchmarks. The greens were recently just cored, seeded and given a granular feed. We will continue to top dress them over the next couple weeks. Overall, the feedback from visitors and members was positive about the greens, but the goal is to improve them every year.
Regarding the fairways this summer with the amount of rain we had they were extremely full with grass early on in the season. After a dry spell they recovered really well. We will be playing from mats soon on both the fairways and first cut of rough. This will once again benefit recovery and make sure they are ready for next season. We have also started adding more definition to the shape of holes by allowing a first cut of rough to grow, narrowing in some of the fairways.
We didn’t change much with bunkers this year however, I will change the sand next season with a sand from Lovies in Aberdeen. Hopefully this will give a more consistent surface to play from – and not blow away so easily.
Our winter general maintenance programme has already started by adding a bunker on the right side of the fairway at hole 3. We felt that over the season the grass in the hollow at that spot didn’t knit as well as hoped for, and divots were not recovering. Below is the finished article.
The Club Council has approved the addition of THREE new bunkers – on holes 6, 8 and 14. I really believe that by adding these bunkers it will enhance the course, and add a little more character to these holes. Over the next couple of weeks, we will go out and white line these areas for all to see. Whilst adding a bunker on the left of the 6th fairway, we will reduce the height of the first fairway bunker to the right-hand side.
Hopefully you will have noticed that we have installed new mats onto some of the winter tees. These mats are the same as the range mats, which you can place a tee in where needed.
A new winter tee for next season at 12 will be completed within the next couple of days, and we will also build a new winter tee at the 4th which will be closer to the main tee, near the sand scrape. Again, this will be for use next winter. We are trying to slightly lengthen the winter course.
Over the winter months PLEASE remember to use your mat, and PLEASE repair Pitchmarks.
Finally, I would like to thank Dillon Mackay who after 8 years of service at the club will be leaving us to help out in the family business. Thank you for all your hard work and we wish you all the best in the future.
Many thanks
David Munro – Head Greenkeeper