According to the met office, may has been colder, wetter and windier than average. I think we can all agree with this! As a greenkeeping process its not been the best month for growth and has been sporadic at best. We are just now starting to see a decent growth pattern to the greens and tees and are generally about 4 weeks behind, growth wise, to were we normally would be and are only just starting to verticut and topdress on a regular basis, the greens tees and aprons were verti cut during the first week of june followed by the greens, aprons and first fairway being topdressed afterwards.
The greens and tees have just had a light feed of nitrogen and potassium to help them come out of the cold spell and the fairways will follow suit in the next couple of weeks.
We did not overseed the tees and fairways during may as it was too cold and windy for the seed to take, but have now completed seeding the tees and are hoping to overseed some of the fairways this month.
Weed killing was carried out on tees and on some fairways, the rest of the fairways and greens will be completed during the warmer weather, as will the practice area.
The only area on the course that is really coming on is the rough! In general it is looking very clean with only a few areas that is thick and clumpy, these are the areas we will look to target with herbicides, to thin the grasses out and encourage finer grass species to dominate.
A new shelter has been installed left of the 6th green amongst the gorse, this shelter at the moment is very clean and fresh looking but is tanalised and will weather to a grey colour in the future.
There is an oyster catcher nest in the rough between the 16th and 17th roughs and has been marked with white hoops, please where posible can you avoid this area until the chicks hatch and have left the nest
Mark Campbell head greenkeeper