Bunkers

We began edging the bunkers today, we will priorities the most untidy traps, hopefully we will have time before the seasons start to get around them all.  Below is a before and after.

Redevelopment on the OB 18

As you may have seen or heard about.  Piperdam are investing yet more money in the complex with the addition of a new out door activities centre.   This building is situated adjacent to the 18th fairway in the area that was OB, this will be a great addition to the facilities we can offer.   Just now it looks like it may impose onto the 18th but this is just purely the safety fence and when the building is finished it will have no impact on the hole as it falls within the area that was mounding before. This will in fact tidy up an area of the complex that has perennially been quite untidy.

Full course

The frost finally came out the ground enough on Friday.  This allowed us to get the summer greens back on.  We cut them today with hand mowers,  this has tidied the surfaces up.  A big thanks to all golfers over the weekend as I can see a great effort was made to fix pitch marks.  This is especially important just now as the greens are a bit softer than normal.  The greens have also been sprayed with a liquid iron (toughten up sward), fungicide (prevent disease) and a green pigment (harness the heat in the sun).

Tree limbing

This cold weather is a perfect opportunity to get on with some tree limbing.   Some areas have got quite a lot of low growth and require the crowns raised up.   This tidy the trees up but also help promote healthier vertical growth.  The 4th and 10th were limbed today.

Wee course open

The wee course opened today (saturday).  There are still a few patches of snow on the big course but generally the course is clear,  it was black ice that kept it closed today.  It made it very unsafe for golfers.  Hopefully we will have it open tomorrow as the forecast is to be mild.

Still closed

The course is still closed unfortunately,  with the temperatures staying low.   Looking at the forecast we have a few mild days coming up that will hopefully allow us to open up the courses sooner rather than later.

We have been getting on with tidy up jobs such as moving all the wooden crates that sat near the greenkeeping shed beside the 2nd tee.  We are striving to give a more finished product this year so it will be the small touches we will try and focus on more.

Snow...

Unfortunately we still quite large patches of snow covering the golf courses.   With temperatures expected to stay cold I wouldn't expect any further thawing of snow.  This means that the courses probably be shut through the weekend of there is any change I will update the blog. 

On a more positive note the greens are looking well and as you can tell by the photo of the putting green they have a nice uniform colour to them.