Thursday 29 June 2017

 On Monday we brushed and cut greens and surrounds on the Craighead course then applied a light top-dressing of sand before the rain on Tuesday

A job this week was to paint an arrow at the entrance to the road to the Clubhouse to help promote traffic using the roundabout the correct way 

Friday 23 June 2017

 We have continued to lightly scarify all our fairways on the Balcomie course when the weather permitted
 We have cultivated an area at the end of our driving range to plant wild flowers to add a food source for birds and bees etc

 Preparing the areas before and after seeding
 March Orchids in the roughs next to hole 7 on the Craighead course
 The Craighead greens getting a little liquid feed after being mown
 We are trying out a post boring machine on our Putting green to help take out some of the heavy soil from the profile and replace it with our divot mix to help improve drainage and air movement in the lower laying areas

Friday 16 June 2017

 Some stunning views of the courses


 This week we continued with verti-cutting and cutting of greens

 Once the greens were verti-cut and cut we gave them a light top-dressing of sand to help smooth the surfaces and help dilute thatch
 Holes 5 & 6 on the Balcomie course
 We have solid tined, verti-cut, cut, double over seeded and top-dressed the 18th green on the Balcomie course to help improve the grass species in the sward
 3rd green on the Balcomie course
 Greens being sprayed after being cut & rolled
 The Balcomie greens being sprayed with a liquid fert at low rate
 We have made a start to lightly scarifying the Balcomie course fairways to help cut out long ends and lateral growth then cut behind to help disperse the clippings
A burst hydraulic hose on our fairway mower on the 18th of the Balcomie course, luckily this is a very rare thing to happen, this area will be hand spiked, seeded and top-dressed to aid it's recovery

Friday 9 June 2017

Challenging week with the weather

 This week has just been rain and more rain with over 85mm so far, so when the weather let up we were out trying to catch up with all the cutting and repairing water damage in bunkers and on tee paths etc, on-going is cutting and collecting problem areas of deep roughs
 out catching up with fairways and semi-rough cutting, we are very lucky that we dry up very quickly after heavy rain which allows us to get our large cutting machinery back out
 with still having high growth we have continued to verti-cut, groom and brush at least once a week on greens etc to control lateral growth
 in-between showers we had a company in called Fairways demoing the new Jacobsen truck with top-dresser and 2 greens irons
adverse weather jobs were to catch up on trimming and cleaning all sprinklers over both courses

Friday 2 June 2017

It's all go on both the courses

 we have been out using the turf iron more in the last couple of weeks with all the growth we have just now to help gain more surface pace
 Both courses looking well
 We have verti-cut the greens again this week to help lift the seed heads and remove thatch
 the amount of clippings from the greens, 2 buggies full
 the greens have had an application of wetting agent and seaweed
 hole 4 on the Balcomie course
 we have carried out some minor work to green 3 on the Balcomie course of solid tining, over seeding, rub in seed then a heavy top-dress to cover the seed, this is to help improve the playing surface and grass sward



 Communication sign on the 3rd tee of the work being carried out to the green
 It's that time of year again that we have been out cutting and collecting problem areas of deep rough to help make the courses more playable and improve these areas
We are starting to see the benefits of the rough management program as they are becoming thinner and cleaner with less rank thick grasses, but this is an ongoing program and we will tackle other areas in time