This week we have just been having light frosts which has allowed us to carry out work once it had lifted usually about from 10am, we applied iron and wetting agent to the Balcomie course greens

 gave the fairways on both courses their first cut of the year to tidy them up

 Same with the teeing grounds

 In the mornings we painted our Craighead medal tee pots and replaced the stickers

 Last Sunday we helped  Fife BDMLR team rescue a seal trapped in a fishing net at the rocks of the 3rd tee on the Balcomie course

 We applied another sand top-dressing to the Balcomie course greens & surrounds

 work has started on lifting all the turf off the 3rd tee on the Balcomie course that could not be re-used

 surface rotovated 2 ways to break up all the compaction

 re-levelling of the surface

 work on fixing the railway sleepers side etc on the 7th medal tee on the Balcomie course is ongoing

 It was another great success holding a talk/tour of the Greenkeeping department to the members to give them an insight to what we all do etc

 Showing the members what is involved each day in setting up our cutting units etc

 They all even got a shot of using the turf iron

 The large greenside bunker on hole 17 on the Craighead course is now complete, we just need to add sand going into the season then it will be back in play

 Another great job by our staff

 We have been working away at our new short game area with installing the irrigation

 Digging out the area for the short game area new green to get the levels before adding in drains etc

 Before the adverse weather on Tuesday and Wednesday we did manage to cut greens & surrounds, top-dress and rub in on the Craighead course

 The wall area rear of the 14th green which was rebuilt on the Craighead course has been tidied up and levelled, soil added then re-turfed so we can cut right up to wall so it can be on show instead of allowing the deep rough to grow again

 We have rebuilt the 1st greenside bunker on the Craighead course

 The Balcomie course on Tuesday after the snow

We have taken samples from the Craighead course greens to measure our organic matter levels to see if we are going in the right direction with our aeration and top-dressing programs

 The Balcomie course is on it's mid week winter closure to give the course a rest and allow the Greenstaff to carry out winter projects safely, the greenside bunker at 15 was rebuilt to complete all bunkers on this hole being rebuilt

 These will be G.U.R until start of the season then we will add fresh sand to raise the sand levels

 We have started work on levelling the 7th medal tee and to fix the railway sleeper sides as the old bolts have rotten, which has meant the sleepers have moved over time

 New posts being concreted in before driving bolts through both the posts and sleepers, which we will do in the next couple of weeks

 The 6th tee path has been lifted and the area levelled and new turf and matting laid, hopefully this will wear better with being level coming down the new path

 The new sign on the roundabout has been re-painted and is now concreted in with bolts to stop any high winds blowing it over

 I was lucky enough to get the chance to visit the John Deere factory in Germany this week

Some interesting talks on how the Company operates etc