Aeration work on the Craighead course at a stand still because of the wet weather this morning so we concentrated on the Balcomie course with spiking, cutting, ironing and spraying wetting agent on the greens, cutting fairways, finishing off semi-roughs and changing holes/tee markers etc

We have closed the Craighead course for our aeration program to the greens which consists of hollow coring to a depth of 2.5", double verti-cutting, over seeding and top-dressing this will help in reducing the thatch levels

Cleaning up the cores has been made easy with hiring a core collector plus has allowed us to have more staff on the Balcomie course before we start verti-cutting etc

We are applying half the top-dressing before we over seed so not to have the seed to deep in the core holes, hopefully we will have all the aeration work completed in the next couple of days weather pending then it will be vibrate rolling and turf ironing to smooth the surface ready for play again
Balcomie course -greens were cut and turf ironed to help speed up the surface, bunkers raked, tees cut and divoted and surrounds cut, last week we applied a growth regulator to the greens to help reduce the top growth

At last the weather has turn so we have started spraying selective weed killer to help control daisies

We have been out cutting/blowing and cleaning all bunkers

With the growth improving plus the new fescue seed coming through on our trial area at the rear of the 15th green we have sprayed a product called Rescue to help kill off the coarser grasses fingers crossed that's all it kills

We have deep spiked an area on the 13th green where we have signs of fairy ring and we sprayed it with fungicide and wetting agent

Sheep escaped from a nearby field and ended up in our bunkers at green 7 on the Craighead course no hoof damage on the green thank god

When is Summer coming, this week we have been carrying out the usual cutting on all areas, we were hoping to start spraying selective weed killer on certain areas but cancelled this job until the weather gets better hopefully things improve next week

All types of weather today
Balcomie course- greens cut, bunkers reshaped and raked because of the high winds, tee markers moved, balls collected and wash bay cleaned
Craighead course - greens cut, tees cut, tees divoted, bunkers raked, all strimming work completed and cut fairways 2,3,4, 8 & 9 that could not be cut last week because of the heavy rain

 Cutting,blowing and raking bunkers on the Craighead course this week

Views from the 14th hole on the Balcomie course with us out cutting, turf ironing greens and cutting tees before the rain this afternoon

 One of our surround units was damaged on Friday afternoon by a small bolt so we had to stripe down straighten blade and re-grind bottom blade and cylinder rebuild ready to go again

 We verti-drained our putting green to help break up the compaction. Other jobs were to cut all greens, rake all bunkers, move tee markers , collect balls and fill ball dispenser, change holes, cut tee banks and strimming work on the Balcomie course and cut 3.5" roughs on the Craighead course

Balcomie course - We cut greens, vibrate rolled greens, trimmed holes, cut surrounds, raked bunkers, moved tee markers, top-dressed the PG, 8th and 15th tees, hand weeded greens as we are starting to see the odd daisy appear and cut 3.5" roughs
Craighead course - Cut greens, turf ironed greens, cut surrounds, cut tees, divot tees, rake bunkers and trimmed greens and surrounds sprinkler heads

We hollow cored tees 8th, 9th medal & 10th medal on the Balcomie course then seeded and top-dressed to help improve the surface before we carried out the work on the tees we cut all tees and divoted them first other jobs were cut greens, rake bunkers and blow beach sand off the 2nd fairway again from the high winds on Monday. On the Craighead course we turf ironed greens,raked bunkers, moved tee markers, finished cutting fairways and semi-roughs.I made a visit up to St Andrews Links to see their results of using the chemical Rescue before I start our trials

The weather is still cold so not at full cutting for the season yet, jobs this week were to verti-cut the Balcomie greens to help smooth the surface and help cut out the coarser grasses, today all of the staff were working on the Balcomie course cutting greens, fairways, semi-roughs, cutting/cleaning bunker faces and changing the holes and tee markers for the mid week medal apart from Rab who was cutting the Craighead greens and when completed the Balcomie course we made a start to the cutting on the Craighead course which hopefully we will complete by the end of tomorrow after the bunkers were completed they carried on divoting landing areas