I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and are set for the New Year lets hope it's a drier year. With it being the Christmas holidays we have only had a skeleton staff out checking the courses daily plus with having over 40mm of rain in the last week and a half we have left any cutting as not to cause damage to soft surfaces but today with things drying up we cut greens, changed holes, moved tee markers and raked bunkers on the Balcomie course and Rolled greens, raked bunkers and moved tee markers on the Craighead course.  

 Verti-draining of the tees to a depth of 9" then all cut was completed on the Balcomie course, the holes changed after the slit tining on the greens and greens and tees cut/divoted on the Craighead course

 After the path was made through our gorse at the 18th we burnt the gorse that was pulled out before the adverse weather hits us

 The 3rd bunker completed all we need to do is extend the drain in the bottom and then fill with sand

 Coastal clean up finished until the next time

 Rain is due later in the week so we brought forward plans of slit tining greens & surrounds, cutting greens & surrounds on the Balcomie course from Thursday to this afternoon

 The landing area on the 5th fairway on the Balcomie course after we cleaned up all the debris washed up from the high tides, hopefully this deep verti-draining will help reduce surface capping and allow to drain better, then we started to verti-drain tees again

A local contractor was back in continuing with making a path through the gorse at 18th for a path to the erosion project at rear of 17th green

 More damage on Saturday night from high tides

 The clean up begins today

 At last we were back working at the 3rd bunker on the Craighead course

All we need to do now is add soil to surrounding areas to fit in with new bunker face then start turfing. Other jobs were to turf iron greens and rake bunkers and move tee markers.

 Today we were welcomed by damage and debris from high tides which has affected holes 2,3,4,5,14 & 15 on the Balcomie course, so next week will be clean up time and hopefully no lasting damage to the turf

Yesterday I attended a workshop on golf course irrigation design at Elmwood, which has helped me understand more about this subject in detail. Jobs back on the courses have been cutting/trimming gorse back and painting areas in the shed as we are still having adverse weather.

 With the weather being better we are back rebuilding the 3rd greenside bunker on the Craighead course, for safety we have put the pin on the winter green

 Another job started today is the new path to the 1st fairway on the Balcomie course which should make it alot safer for the golfers in wet or damp conditions, other jobs were to cut & turf iron greens just to help clean & smooth off the surface as its been nearly 2 weeks since there last cut

 Most of the week we have been on winter greens on the Craighead course because of the frost and ice

 Work has started on rebuilding the 3rd rear greenside bunker on the Craighead course

 Drainage work on the 8th Fairway Craighead course has been stopped until the ground thaws

 With the adverse weather we have nearly completed all the insulation work to our paint room and cleaning/painting of the mess room and my office.Other jobs have been to start gorse cutting and gritting of the road to Clubhouse and car parks

Hopefully the weather improves to allow us to carry on with our winter work projects