Well, it sure has been cold the last couple of days with the minimum temperature being around 3 degrees at night resulting in a fair amount of frost. Most of this frost has been on Holes 1-5 which has resulted in a couple of delays.
At least the weather has been a bit more settled and the course is drying out nicely. The amount of rain received over the last couple of months has been astounding, over 850 mm for the year so far which is double the historic average of 430 mm. The course in general has come through this period fairly well though. Some of the greens (particularly the older soil based greens) have struggled a little with the wet and we are trying to help them along with extra feeding, verti-draining, applications of penetrants and regular light sand dusting to keep them healthy and firm. We have also decided to give the Chipping and Putting greens rest in order to cope with the wet and traffic on them which is helping.
Other areas of concern have as usual been our bunkers and metal cart paths. They have taken huge amounts of work of late to try and get them into a reasonable state. the good news is that the bunkers that have the new Bunker Matrix lining installed in them are performing very well, especially the bunker that is right of the green on 18. Please take a look at this video we did for you in the bunker on 18 to show you how it works...
The settled weather has also allowed us to start catching up on other work such as the spraying of weeds in the cart paths, naturalized areas, under trees and along the boundary lines. We have also begun to repair and replace a few patches of turf that has been damaged as a result of the wet as well as catching up on mowing the rough which has been a struggle to mow without getting stuck. All in all though, it is going quite well and we are making good progress.
Before I finish though, we would like to ask for your help. We are having a bit of a problem with second shots on hole 16 going left, over the road and hitting property across the road on Abbotts Way. We are going to be putting measures in place to try and stop this from happening but we ask that you please be careful when trying to hit a long shot around the corner on hole 16. The last thing we want is for anyone walking on Abbotts Way to get hurt or property there to be damaged.
Kind Regards
Spencer and course maintenance team