New bunker @ 15

We've started to put the new bunker in on the 15th. It's on the left hand side around 20 yards short of the old bunker, we are going to fill the old bunker in and put it back to approach. The new bunker will still give the green some protection but will allow golfers to land on the other side of it thus giving more chance of holding the green, as the approach into that green is notoriously difficult. We've made the bunker into a kidney shape. I've added photos but they may not be in order as when i upload them they can't get mixed up.

Coring collars

We've started coring the collars on the big course with 1/2 inch hollow tines down to 4 inches. This will help to reduce the thatch and also get some air into the profile.

Coring

The big greens got cored with a 3/8 tine down to 2.5 inches. We then blew the cores to the edge and collected. The greens have been cut today to lift up any remaining debris, this also helps to smooth the surface out.

The greens were then sprayed with medallion as we had a little fusarium starting to kick off and the weather forecast is to change to cold with a chance of snow.

Course open

The flooding has eased off on both courses. There are a few puddles and the ground is a bit soft but both courses are open. Bunkers are GUR and its preferred lies.

Flooding

The big course was hit pretty hard with flooding today, the water was puddling in areas I've seen before! Towards the end of the day the rain did start to ease off and the flooding started to go down. The wee course was very wet but the greens stood up to the rain and we managed to get golfers out. I'm hopeful the courses will be open tomorrow but will probably have a few puddles and standing water in low areas.

Frosty

With the frosty mornings we have carried on preparing the newly levelled ladies tee at 10. It's not that big but it's a par 5 so it doesn't need to be too big.

When the frost has lifted in the day we have carried on cutting the course and keeping the presentation levels to an acceptable standard. Toro have also brought in the new 3420 greens triple, we have got it for a few weeks so it will let us have a good look at it!

Wee greens

We cored the wee greens today with a 3/8 mini core down to an inch in depth. We don't need to go to deep or big in these greens as they are relatively new usga spec greens. We take a core out to prevent a thatch build up also it helps to get air into the soil. We then verti-cut up the cores and blew of any remaining debris.

I plan to core the big greens with the same size if core next week weather permitting.

Wet and windy

We were hit with some horrific weather at the start of the week with strong winds and heavy rain. The course held up not to bad with only small branches coming down. The greens did get flooded quite badly, they did generally dry up but we had to keep the pins in the drier areas so this meant a couple were quite tough as we had to keep them away from old hole plugs as well. The biggest problem when the greens get wet are foot prints, on some greens we need to protect these areas when they are a little soft. All the top dressing, coring and graden work will eventually aid in firming up the surfaces after periods of wet weather and all ready the greens are a lot firmer than they where a couple of years ago. The holes are being changed for tomorrow (sunday) morning as the greens are now fully dry and firm.

I've cut and lifted the turf on the ladies tee at 10, this is so we can level it and make it a better teeing surface for ladies and juniors.

The growth on all surfaces has slowed right down as well, we will carry on with regular maintenance to keep the courses tidy for the rest of the season.

Course prep

We had the greenkeepers (Bigga) autumn outing yesterday. We had the course all prepared and in my opinion was looking quite good! The greens speed has come right up as it has been so dry and the growth has checked back. We pushed the greens this week and they where really fast but now we will rest them and get them back to a more regular speed.

We have also marked out the winter greens and will start preparing them for the cold weather. Please treat these areas as GUR.

Dry and windy

We've been enjoying the dry and windy weather in the last few weeks. The course is looking well as we are getting dry cuts. We have raised our height of cut on the greens to help to protect them going into the cooler months. The speed hasn't gone down in fact if anything the have sped up as its been dry and we've been able to use the tru turf a lot. The temperatures have also dropped, this means the growth has started to check back.

Top dressing

The osprey greens have been sarel rolled (creates pockets for seed), over seeded and top dressed. The greens have then had a drag mat over them. We kept the sarel rollers on for the first drag as this helps to get more seed into the greens profile.

Still dry

The course is drying out nicely and the surfaces have generally firmed up. We are giving both courses full cuts this week and the definition is coming up nicely. We have sarel rolled the greens, this great for getting air into the profile and breaks up surface tension.

One thing which is slightly annoying is a golfer felt the need to pull there trolley over the 14th green. The fertiliser we put out clearly showed the trolley mark over the greens, some golfers etiquette baffles me.

Scottish Par 3 Championship @ Piperdam

Hopefully a dry week at last

The weather has continued to be horrendously wet with it being the wettest summer in 100 years. We've managed to get good surfaces 99% of the time but last week was to much. The course flooded 3 out of the last 7 days it made maintenance impossible. We had very limited cutting during the week and we weren't able to touch the greens at all at the weekend because they where just so soft. The course can deal with a lot of rain but with the summer we've had it's just not been able to drain away. We need to carry on our top dressing and using the graden machine to ensure that we keep removing and diluting the thatch content. This will aid in firming the surfaces up and help water pass through them. The graden work we did a few weeks ago has generally healed over nicely with only faint lines remaining.

On a positive note the forecast is good this week and already the surfaces are returning to normal. With the course being so wet it takes a couple of days to firm up again.

We've fed the greens with a marathon 5-0-27, this will give the plant some strength going into the back end of the season.

Heavy rain

The course has been hammered with heavy rain. We managed to get it open yesterday but we had to push a lot of water. The course is open today but is still very wet under foot.

The course has been prepared for captains day tomorrow but we will need to see how wet it is on sat night/sun morning to see what can be done to prepare the greens.

Oil leak

We had a hydraulic oil leak on the 9th green at the weekend. It's roughly 12 meters in length, 6 meters of it isn't to bad so we have cored it, overseeded and dressed with sand. The other 6 meters was a bit more severe and would take a lot longer to recover, so we have replaced the turf. We don't have a turf nursery so we have had to improvise. We stripped the damaged turf at the 9th and have replaced it with a strip of turf off the back of the 17th, we used the 17th as it is the biggest green and we can bring it in a foot at the back. We then replaced the turf at the back of the 17th with a strip of turf from ladies tee at 16. This will now ensure all the greens and surrounds have grass coverage and it will just be a case of knitting together. This will keep damage down to a minimum and the 16th ladies tee is big enough that the damaged turf will not effect ladies. I've put up a series of photos they may not be in order as when I add from my phone they reorder themselves for some reason.