Summer time begins

We are in the process of replacing all the anti-slip strips on our railway sleeper steps, other jobs this week were cutting greens, tees, surrounds and harder growing fairways plus continuing edging and topping up tee paths etc

 With the snow showers first thing we left finishing off the mini coring till after break to finish so we cleaned and blew both car parks first thing and touched up bunkers on both courses

Also we finished off the new 15th path etc

 Today we got back to the mini hollow coring, verti-cutting etc on the Craighead greens as the weather is slightly better well drier but still very cold and windy, we are waiting till the winds drop before starting to clean up sand that has blown out of bunkers etc

 What a start to our golfing season with snow and high winds

 With the high winds from the east it has caused sand to blow up from the beach over our 2nd fairway on the Balcomie course

 We have nearly completed our erosion project at hole 17 its only the new tee path to be topped up with whin dust and the bank to be seeded

Lets hope the weather changes very soon to allow us to finish off our mini coring on the Craighead greens and getting the course set up for the season

 Next stage at the 17th erosion was to lay pipe which ties into our new drains, back fill, shape banking and lay road planings on the new tee path

The lowered bank gives such a better back drop to the 17th hole

 We made a start to mini hollow coring, verti-cutting, cleaning up and hand cutting the Craighead greens until the rain started

 Both courses closed yesterday because of the snow but we got the Craighead course back open today on winter greens, so it was a great chance for me to update our risk assessments

 With the ground being hard with the frost today we managed to get to the 8th drainage on the Craighead course without making a mess other jobs were cutting more gorse and re filling the 6th green side bunker with sand on the Balcomie course after we dug out all old sand

The new erosion work was well tested at the weekend with some high tides

 Work on our erosion project has been delayed as our tractor and backhoe has broken down so hopefully be back up and running by the end of the week

 We have continued to refill all our rebuilt bunkers on the Craighead course plus sprayed the greens and surrounds with liquid iron and potassium nitrate

Other jobs so far this week has been to seed and top up drainage lines with a soil/sand mix. That's the courses irrigation systems primed up for the season plus the course toilet block back open

 On the Balcomie course we dug out the old whin dust path on hole 6 and replaced it with soil and turf then laid rubber matting as the new path, we have used this rubber matting on other paths/areas and it works well and looks natural when the turf grows through

 With the frosty mornings we have had to wait till the afternoons to complete our verti-draining and top-dressing to the greens

We have been carrying on with painting the tee markers and tee posts in the mornings, Today we raked all the bunkers, moved tee markers and cut and turf ironed the Craighead greens, collected the balls off the range for the weekend. This afternoon I carried out the seasonal interviews as we are hoping to have 2 in place for the start of April