The week (to Friday) produced 5.5 mm of rain, which included 4 mm on Friday morning. More is forecast over the weekend, and next week is looking quite wet. It is winter, after all, and we should be grateful for a reasonably dry autumn which has kept the course accessible for the heavy work we’d planned - and got done.

We’ve also had some quite significant frosts during the week which delayed some routine tasks but has also brought most of the grass growth to a halt. The fairways are at their winter height (18 mm: summer height is 14 mm) and the rough lowered to 35 mm with the Ventrac: in the summer it is set at minimum 50 mm, this being the minimum height required to qualify as ‘rough’ for course assessment purposes.

This autumn’s leaf drop has passed straightforwardly. It was mainly managed by mowing/mulching under the trees: we didn’t need to use the blower much. We’ve still to clear out the 12th ditch.

The 6th black/white tee has been stripped and levelled, ready to be returfed - fresh turf is being delivered early this week. We were a bit confused with the main turf delivery, which had extra quantities, without explanation. It turns out some of the delivery had been contaminated with diesel and the surplus was to cover the spoilt material. We didn't know until some of it had been down for a week or two and it started to die. It hadn’t begun to root through and was easily replaced, but we should have been warned.

Gavin plans to level and returf the area in front of the range bays shortly.

The Board have approved our request for funding to replace the bunker rake and a utility truck, and has also agreed to resurface with resin the redtrack paths from the first tee to the service road and from the 9th green past the half-way house to the course exit. We hope this will inform future ambitions to improve other paths. The work is planned for early next year but Gavin has a lot to do to prepare the target areas.


Course committee