New 4th winter tee

The site for a new winter tee at the 4th hole was cleared. This tee will allow us to spread wear  around the 3rd green in the winter months. The should be ready to use by mid November. 

Autumn renovations

Today we started some Autumn renovation work on the tees. Hollow coring with 16mm tines used to remove large cores from the profile. These holes will be filled with clean sand and then overseeded with bar fescue. 

Mini tine aeration

This morning we have carried out some much needed aeration on the greens with 6mm mini tines. Over the past few weeks we have been ironing greens almost daily and this  has sealed the surface slightly meaning heavy rain showers are slower to percolate through the profile. We punched the holes in to a depth of 50mm as we needed to get some  oxygen into the root system and allow the the turf to breath.  There is very little disturbance with this size of tine. 

Scottish amateur championship

Morning prep work on greens for the 1st round of the match play Scottish amateur. A single cut and a double roll to greens gave us a lovely smooth surface and pace at 11 on the stimp, mowing at 4mm HOC. 

Course flooding

This morning the course was badly affected by the heavy rainfall from the previous day and overnight. 32mm fell from lunchtime on Wednesday to 6am onThursday morning. Several bunkers were flooded and greens were showing lying water until around 8am. This year as in previous years we have had almost a third of our annual rainfall in June and the first half of July. Not ideal when we are trying to produce firm links conditions. Hopefully the weather will improve in the next few weeks. 

Wild flowers in rough areas.

Orchids- It is noticeable this year the increase in the orchid population in the rough areas. Now that we have removed the rank coarse grasses from the rough these wild flowers are now living in a better environment where they can flourish and spread. Hopefully we will now see other wild flora and fauna appear over the next few years. 

Silverburn Course

Rough areas. 

The chemical applied to the rough areas on the silverburn course has eliminated the rye and Yorkshire fog  grasses. As can be seen in the pictures the brown areas have died back. We will rake these areas now to remove the dead material and then re seed with fescue. There are some weeds left that will be removed before seeding takes place.