That's the start of the winter course closures with the Craighead course closed first which gives the courses a rest plus allows us to carryout maintenance, we are continuing with drainage work on the 4th fairway

 Rebuilding of the 9th greenside bunker as face worn and choked out with sand plus it's south facing which means it gets more sun which dries the face out more

The new winter mats for the par 3 tees are nearly complete the new mat allows the golfer to use normal tees which fit in the mat and these will be in play from the weekend

 Drainage work continues with back filling the trenches with pea gravel, sand on top then brushed in

other jobs have been cutting fairways, cutting tees and divoting, making new winter tee mats for our par 3 tees and catching up with more spraying of worm irritant and iron. greens on both courses have only been rolled daily this week to remove dew

 We have started drainage work on the Craighead course 4th fairway

 We are gravel banding above the drains we installed last year at 1.5metre spacing to help improve surface drainage this will be ongoing for the next 2 months weather permitting

 The trenches are getting back filled with pea gravel the soil from the trenches is getting reused to extend the mound at the 6th tees

 As we have very little growth we just turf ironed the greens today to disperse the dew then sprayed a preventative fungicide as this is the usual time for disease attack going into the winter months we will hopefully spray the Balcomie greens tomorrow as well

 That's been two and a half weeks since we completed our aeration work to the Balcomie course greens and they are slowly recovering , we managed to cut and vibrate roll them today as it was dry enough at last to help smooth off the surface and tidy them up

Other jobs were to re shape and fix water damage in the Craighead course bunkers, change holes, turf ironing greens and more divoting on the tees

 The 6th green walk off area on the Balcomie course was always flooding and weak so we put in a drain, loosened up the soil profile and re-turfed the area.

More heavy rain last night which is flooding the local farmers field above hole 5 and 6 on the Balcomie course which is then coming over onto the course causing flooding on the fairway. with both courses being very wet today we kept machines off the courses so we divoted tees and started on the fairways as well as pumping away the flood waters.

 Today we continued to pump away any standing water from the flooding

We have been trying out a demo greens mower from Jacobsen on the Craighead greens
The front 9 is closed this week on the Craighead course to allow us to start drainage work on fairway 4 other jobs were to rake all bunkers, cut & roll the Balcomie greens, collect balls and cut driving range

 Yesterday the calm before the storm, on the Balcomie course we finished all the slit tining to the fairways then they were all cut to smooth off the surface, verti-drained all the tees then cut and top-dressed our greens turf nursery, the greens are slowly recovering from the aeration work and we are trying to roll the surface when dry and hopefully start cutting them again next week as all the heavy rain has helped wash in the top-dressing

Last night and through to this morning we received over 45mm of rain which caused severe flooding so both courses were closed and we managed to open the Balcomie course at 11am apart from holes 5,6 & 7 hopefully both courses will be back fully open tomorrow for the weekend

 The deep rough right of fairway 10 on the Balcomie course is getting cut down and clippings collected to help starve this area to hopefully reduce the thickness of the grass for next year

We started to deep aerate the Balcomie tees to a depth of 9" today this will continue till the end of the week, other jobs were to continue slit tining fairways, raking bunkers, divoting tees, completing the drainage job on hole 18 on the Craighead course then cleaning up the leaves around the 3rd green

 The Craighead greens were cut then sprayed with liquid iron

 Slit tining on the Balcomie fairways this will continue throughout the winter months on all fairways to relieve compaction

 This area at hole 14 on the Craighead course is where we dumped all the cores from the Balcomie greens then levelled out so it can be cut with a mower instead of being strimmed plus safer for golfers to walk over as was very uneven

 Today was the start of us carrying out drainage work which will continue on the Craighead course for the next  5 weeks, the first area is on the 18th fairway which we have drained into the bunker and the area will be all re turfed and hopefully help reduce the flooding

That's been a week since we completed the aeration work to the Balcomie course greens so we are vibrate rolling the greens each afternoon as still lifting topdressing when wet and we applied a 5.5.10 +fe fertiliser to help aid in the recovery plus give them a balanced feed for going into the winter months

 We finished off the top-dressing and rubbing in then vibrate rolling of the Balcomie greens today, we will continue to roll greens when dry to help smooth off surface but full recovery will take about 3 to 4 weeks weather pending

Other jobs were to rake bunkers, move and divot tees, cut 3.5" roughs, collect balls and get back to scarifying fairways and collecting the clippings, the Craighead course greens were left today as growth has slowed down