Although we still haven’t broken free from the continued wet theme, March has at least been less severe and a big positive has been able to avoid any course closures.
The difficult conditions though have hampered our preparations for the season and as such we are a little behind what would be considered ideal.
We have though, all but a few minor tasks, completed all project and repair works and most significantly connected up all sections of the irrigation installations so that the system can now be primed for use.
In this months update I’ve mixed up the format with some video as well as the usual written format. Please let me know which communication format you prefer, as it would be interesting to know which you feel is most effective.
Course Conditions
With rainfall still being at regular intervals, the course has remained soft in places and this has been reflected by the lack of buggy availability. However March is the first month since last October that has seen 27 holes available all month.
The longer days are helping though and the difference a couple of dry days have made can’t be underestimated.
Greens
Tees
Fairways
Bunkers
With having had such a wet winter, the condition of the course is certainly satisfactory, even if it isn’t where we would have hoped.
Irrigation
In April we will be priming and testing the irrigation system after recent upgrades.
Over the last 12 months we have installed an entire new main pipeline with cable on Morgan’s course, along with valves and sprinklers on 10 of the greens and aprons and 5 tees have also had sprinklers installed.
With the old system pipeline prone to regular bursts, many of its valves didn’t operate properly and inefficient sprinklers, the work carried out is going to make an enormous difference.
Not only will more uniform and efficient irrigation improve playing conditions, it will also be the equivalent to having another member of staff, such will be the amount of time saved.
This has occupied an enormous amount of our time for the last few months and as such we have neglected other areas as a result, so going into April, attention to detail can be more of a focus now resources can be reallocated.
April
We can only hope that April is the month when we see a change to the usettled weather of the last six months.
Our job should come more routine as we focus all our attention on the basics of day to day setup of the facilities.
One of those facilities not mentioned so far in this update is the driving range. Ball collection has still been a big challenge, with the field still not having dried out much. Two problems are now hindering what would normally be an easy part of our daily routine by now.
They are firstly that nearly all balls are still plugging into the soil, meaning the balls still can’t be efficiently collected by machine. Secondly the grass has got particularly long because the field has never been dry enough for us to get on with a mower.
We did manage to top it off on the last day of March though, so hopefully we will be able to begin offering the range routinely again without any disruption before too long.
As mentioned already, there are a number of things aside from routine in April which are as follows:
- Top dressing greens
- Spraying weeds across the playing surfaces
- Topping up the remaining bunkers with sand
- Getting the driving range up to speed
That’s all for now, but please do get in touch with any questions and like mentioned at the start of the update, please feel free to feedback on what you think is the most effective form of communication.
Greg Fitzmaurice
Course Manager