With the course having become very wet now, it has become increasingly difficult for us to carry out our work. We did manage to get enough earth moved though, ready to complete the project on Pennington’s tee area, This churned up some of the turf on the course transporting the soil back and forth, but fortunately we now have the chance to let these areas recover and they should return to normal in a week or two. As for the area around Pennington’s tees, we will have to leave this work until drier conditions return, as any attempt to continue will only make matters worse.
As we were unable to continue with Pennington’s tees, we decided to start some bunker work from the listed winter program. The bunker by the green on Cottage Corner has always been a problem where maintenance is concerned, but also poor from a playing point of view.
We have now built a new bunker in place of the old one in the same revetted style as those rebuilt last winter. The new bunker is now visible from the fairway and really compliments the hole visually. It is also much more practical to maintain and will allow us to produce much better turf in close proximity to the green.
For the week ahead we will be closing down the irrigation system. This involves draining down the pipework and shutting down the operating systems that pump water around the course. It isn’t completely necessary to do this, but is good practice in protecting the system from frost damage should we get a prolonged cold spell this winter.
Other work will be to sharpen all rotary cutting blades, cut back some more areas of overgrown gorse and if possible some mowing on the course in key areas.
Have a good week and please get in touch with any queries.
Greg