Monday, 26 January 2015

January course work

The main tasks we've been working on this month are

  • Verti-draining greens, tees and areas such as paths and worn parts of green surrounds.  This aeration work is probably the most essential winter renovation task as it alleviates the compacting effects of golf and vehicle traffic.
  • Gorse coppicing to rejuvenate old leggy gorse, mostly on the 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th holes.
  • Sapling cutting in the rough and gorse to prevent the course turning from heathland into woodland.  We remove large numbers of seedlings every winter and without this work the transition to woodland would be surprisingly rapid.
  • Topping up sand in the bunkers where it has blown or washed away.
  • Renovating the bunker left of the 3rd fairway.  (Don't worry - although it looks very deep at present, the final sand level will be similar to that before work started.  We're digging out deep because this area is very stony and we intend to put in a layer of clean soil to prevent stone being brought to the surface.)
Neil and Danny working on the 3rd bunker - some of the stony areas were so compact that a pick axe was needed to loosen it

Andrew and Shane topping up bunker sand

Trevor vertidraining

Monday, 5 January 2015

Weather summary for December

The temperature in December was a little above average at 6° (the average is 5.3°)The lowest temperature was -0.8° on the 30th and the highest 14° on the 18th.  After the wettest November on record December was also relatively wet with 59.7mm compared with the average of 50.7mm.  The total rainfall for the year was 654.7mm, making it the wettest year since 2001 when we had 750mm.  The 2014 rainfall total was nearly 300mm higher than that recorded in 2013!