4th August
The weather. Witnessing today our worst day of summer weather this year with high gusts of wind up to 60mph with heavy rain at times thrown in. As was last year the better summer weather took place pre July as the slow moving jet stream eased the low pressure both North and South of the UK. It was particularly dry from February onwards with rainfall readings of 16mm February, 27mm March, 23mm April, 42mm each in May and June of which all occurred in the last week of May and over 3 days in June. 82 mm fell in July giving a total of 267mm for this year compared to 415mm for the same period last year. That’s a deficit of 148mm and to put that into perspective it would be like a pretty wet winters month of rain. Nonetheless our water system has been put to good use with irrigation of the greens starting as early as Feb 26th this year! and overall for a total of 43 days to combat the dry weather. The tees have had 19 irrigation cycle days and the same for fairways. This did help the fairways sustain themselves and was never so important with the level of golf traffic experienced this year. Our greens team have been extra busy keeping on top of fairway and tee divotting which keeps the surfaces in a presentable state. As like each year we have our band of merry crows pecking out the divots in Spring and early summer and it is one of the joys of greenkeeping!!

Moving onto the greens. Our greens have been playing pretty well for the most part and it has been quite difficult without natural rainfall at prolonged times. We have kept the height of cut at 4mm to leave a little more leaf on the plant and also eased off aggressive verti-cutting treatments. Once the weather turned we went on with our longer pencil tines and this has helped with uniformity and with the recent rainfalls it has helped re hydrate the soils beneath. Last week we gave them a light verti-cut and we plan to give them a light top dress in the next week or two to improve surfaces further.

Our tees are standing up fairly well and again are getting divotted up to 3 times a week and getting cut twice weekly. We purchased new tees cutting units with brushes for the back rollers in spring this year. They are doing a great job and are also saving the lads much time in not having to constantly clean them.
Practice range. We seem to be spending an awful lot of extra time this year on the range keeping it looking presentable. Mountains of broken tees to pick up along with divots galore that need picking up before we cut the grass. We have provided a couple of broken tee caddies at the back of the range mat and it would be helpful if you could deposit broken tees into these please. We are also spending a lot of time picking up golf balls that have been hit over the fences on either side which I find incredible that so many people can hit a golf ball that far offline aiming for the centre of the range! If people are going to hit from the sides can they please still aim for the middle of the range as the amount of golf balls getting lost is costing the club money.
Bunkers. We have trialed a new sand in the bunkers this summer and so far it seems to be working ok. The sand is finer although not the same colour but we have been blending it in with the old sand and seems to be giving an acceptable mix. We are also on most occasions flat raking up the sides which is leaving these faces firmer and less likely for a ball to plug. Bunker maintenance and sand topping up is an ongoing thing and it is difficult to keep them looking and playing perfect all of the time. Members can help by being a bit more diligent when raking over and leaving the end of the rake handle of the bottom step when they depart.
Looking ahead to Autumn we have our greens maintenance week starting on October 13th and then towards the end of October/early November SSE will be taking down the power lines and poles on the West side of the course. The power lines will be then trenched undergound which will improve our outlook along this side and most importantly not get in the way of a well struck drive of the 6th tee!!
Enjoy the rest of your golfing season.
George Paterson
Head Greenkeeper