Thursday 8 December 2016

6th medal tee

The 6th medal tee has been levelled off and enlarged a little.  The turf was delivered this morning and the tee is finished apart from a bit of tidying up around the edges.  We'll transplant some gorse into the area behind the tee to provide an evergreen screen that will hide the house beyond the boundary fence.

Finishing off the soil levelling
Laying the turf today

December course news

November was much colder than average so grass growth has slowed right down and mowing frequency has reduced.  The average green speed for the month was 8ft 9in, the same as October.  In the areas of greens surround treated with Rescue, some of the bare areas have been turfed with plugs from the 8th medal tee which is due for renovation.  Recovery from Rescue treatment of greens has been excellent on the river course and 7th green on the main course, good on the 8th and a little disappointing on the 11th.  White lines and hoops have been put out, to keep trolley traffic away from areas where heavy use would wear out the turf.  Members can help us to get the course through the winter in the best possible condition, by keeping trolleys well away from greens and especially any weak or renovated areas.  Please bear in mind that winter play has a much greater impact on course condition than summer golf as the turf isn’t growing enough to recover and the soil is moist and more prone to compaction. 

Course maintenance highlights during November
·         The winter aeration programme continued with shallow chisel tines on the greens
·         Renovation work continued on aprons and approaches
·         Some more cut and collect rough mowing was done
·         The 6th medal tee was re-constructed to improve levels and enlarge it a little.  Gorse will be transplanted to the area behind the tee to provide an evergreen screen.

Work programme for December

Work has started on rebuilding the 8th white and yellow tees and a hollow behind the 7th green to tie in with the new tee bank.  Once the turf has been stripped from the work area all players will need to take the route to the left of the green.  A temporary tee mat has been installed for use during the construction period.  Gorse coppicing and trimming will continue, particularly if we get more cold and frosty weather.  A practice mat will be installed at the back of the main course practice ground.  Work may also start on digging out the base of stony bunkers and lining them with clean soil.

Twitter
A Twitter account has been started so that we can keep members up to date with course activity and anything of interest.  The user name is Greens_AGC.


Monday 5 December 2016

Weather summary for November

This year November was one of the coldest we've recorded.  The average temperature was 6.9°, quite a contrast with the 10.3 average in 2015.  The lowest temperature was -3.7° on the 29th, this was the lowest November temperature we've recorded since we first got a weather station in 2000.  The warmest day was the 15th when the temperature rose to 15°.  There was 75.6mm of rain, which is well above the 51.6mm average.  We've already had more frosts this winter than we had in the entire winter last year.