All the course has been cut regularly to ensure all areas are looking there best, this meant double cutting greens, tees, surrounds, increasing frequency of fairway and semi rough cutting and blowing any areas off to stop grass accumulation from machinery.
The greens were also rolled a number of times to help build up speed and trueness.
The team should be really proud of how the course did and currently looks. The feedback from the past few weeks has been incredible, the only downside, if there is one is that we can not keep that pace and cover that workload for the rest of the playing season.
On top of getting the course ready for the competitions we have also tidied up the banks on the 23rd hole. The 23rd tee is really poor and the mole activity on the side of the tee is the main reason for subsidence on the tee surface. Cutting the grass down helps catch the moles that are doing the damage. The tee does need relevelling and turfing, this is one of our priority jobs but currently not top of the list for this winter.
Shortly the greens will be spiked to reduce surface compaction and allow water and air into the profile, with rolling the greens they will have built up a little surface compaction, this slows water penetration and can lead to surface water with very little rain as was the case on Monday morning.
The entrance lane has now been strimmed to allow better view of traffic and we have tidied around the newly planted hedgerow on the 20th hole.
After the recent playing schedule we have an opportunity to topdress greens, so this will be done over the next week or so.
We have started spraying weeds in the semi rough to begin with, the fairways and other parts of the course are a little dry at the moment and there is risk of scorching the grass. The semi is being blanket sprayed (spraying it all) to reduce weeds and increase turf quality. Should the weather change the fairways and tees will also be sprayed
