This week we are verti-draining, cutting, turf ironing then lightly top-dressing on the Balcomie course greens before the season starts

 As we are working at the rear of green 17th on erosion work it makes sense to add a couple of drains in the low areas as these were flooding last season

 Repairing a low area on the 17th fairway on the Balcomie course

With the great weather we are having we are getting frosts first thing with the clear skies but is usually lifted by 9.30am which is allowing us to get back to plan A. other tasks are painting tee markers and mixing soils and sands until frosts lift plus we finished verti-draining all walk areas and adding sand to newly built bunkers etc  

 Verti-draining walkways etc on the Balcomie course

 5th greenside bunker

 Rebuilding of the bunker face on 5th fairway

 The erosion project is going well with all the main digger work completed, so now its reshaping bank, re-routing new path to 15th tees etc

Other jobs this week have been to plant more gorse on the Craighead course, completing new path at 17th and today cutting and turf ironing greens, changing holes, divoting tees and bunker all raked plus I carried out the staff annual appraisals

 Starting to drive stone round to the erosion area on the Balcomie course

 All the larger stones ready to be placed, what a great view with the bank taken away

 Levelling the area for the stones to be placed at just above the high tide area

After about 150tons of stone in place, hopefully tomorrow we will place the rest of the stone

 The Balcomie course is on it's last winter work closure before the season starts so we are continuing with the new 17th path down to the fairway

 Carrying on with the 17th erosion project which will continue for the next couple of weeks

Rebuilding the 5th greenside bunker
The Craighead course was on winter greens till 9.30am until the frost had lifted

 Next week we are planning to place all the rock and stone which was driven down from a local farm to help reduce the erosion behind the 17th green on the Balcomie course but first we need to take away the existing bank and store so we can reuse the soil to re-instate the bank. We dug a soak away on the low part of the 16th fairway to help reduce standing water on the surface and hopefully reduce turf damage

Other jobs - On the Craighead course we have been verti-draining tees and topping up bunkers with sand on the front 9 holes, we did try to make a start back to the drainage on hole 8 but still too wet

Craighead course
With the weather staying dry at last, we carried on with solid tining all the greens, slit tined all the fairways and walkways, completed edging all the bunkers and we are hoping to get back to the drainage project on the 8th fairway with it drying out. other tasks have been turf ironing greens to help smooth off the surface, changing holes and divoting tees
Balcomie course
With carrying out works on the other course we have only been raking bunkers, moving/divoting tees daily and progressing well with painting the ball washers

 We are now on the last course closures before the season starts on the Craighead course so we are out solid tining greens to a depth of 2.5", edging bunkers and digging out the 2nd fairway bunker to put in a soakaway to help drainage

On the Balcomie course we raked all bunkers, moved tee markers, vibrate rolled greens and cleaned up any mess on roads from all the rocks being delivered at the weekend

Today we started the next phase in the 17th coastal erosion project on the Balcomie course by loading up and delivering over 300tons of rock and stones from a local farm to the storage area at hole 18 hopefully we will have this project well underway by the end of February as we have the course closed the last 2 weeks in February.