Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from all the Staff

 We have been hand cutting the perimeter's of the greens to help reduce tyre marking throughout the winter months

Work on the 11th tee on the Balcomie course is on going and will be completed in January. The last few days has been getting most areas cut and tidied up over both the courses for the Xmas period as from today we will be only operating with a skeleton staff till the 5th of January

 Rebuilding the bunker short right on the 3rd on the Balcomie course

 The Balcomie course greens and surrounds cut then a light top-dressing applied

 With us reusing all the turf from the Balcomie course 11th red and yellow tee we can now make a start to re-leveling

 After laying the new water pipe through the Craighead course we had to repair the damaged irrigation pipes then test

That's both courses irrigation systems drained down for the winter months

 The car parks getting gritted to help keep these areas safer because of the frosty mornings

 A start was made to cutting/trimming gorse back with having frost this morning

 9th green side bunker completed on the Craighead course

 At last managed to break through all the rock, the big clean up starts

 The water pipe and drainage works still on going, hopefully 2 to 3 days work left to complete weather pending

 Checking the face angle on our newly built bunkers

Repairs to the roundabout as a lorries wheels had damaged the edge and turf

 Rebuilding work starting at front greenside bunker at hole 9 on the Craighead course

Installation of the new water pipe is still on going with nearly all the digging work completed just a 10metre stretch of rock to break through then start to re instate these areas and repair the damaged irrigation pipes and 2 old drains. Other tasks on the Links was to just keep both courses tidy and cutting of greens and surrounds, divoting of tees and an application of iron and pesticide to the Craighead tees to control Leather jackets. Saturday morning seen our first frost of this winter to put our winter greens in play on the Craighead course and the Closure till 10am on the Balcomie course

 The work to the start of the 18th tee path was completed

 This week our major project is to lay 500m of mains water pipe through the Craighead course to the existing toilet block which will also give us a feed of water to a new proposed drinking fountain

The course looking great for the end of November.On the Balcomie course we slit tined the greens and surrounds, then vibrate rolled and sprayed with worm irritant, we are seeing more casting worms than usual for this time of year as it's still mild and wet we have usually had the odd morning of frost and colder temperatures. Other tasks this week have been still out cutting areas, divotting fairways and repairing worn area at the start of the 18th tee path which we are replacing with rubber matting to help reduce wear

 2nd tee coming on great on the Balcomie course

 12th green side bunker complete on the Balcomie course

 We have transplanted Marram grass into the new tee banks

 1st green side bunkers new face nearly built

 Danes dyke that runs through the Craighead course getting some rebuilding work done

1st green side bunker complete
Balcomie course -Other tasks this week with the course being closed was to slit tine fairways and spray with soluble iron. Greens, surrounds and tees were also sprayed with iron plus a pesticide
Craighead course - Tasks were just course set up each morning, spray greens and surrounds with a pesticide and cut all the fairways apart from the 2nd and 9th as still too wet, the rainfall for November so far is 76mm and more to come tonight

 This week the Balcomie course is on it's winter closure, so we have made a start to rebuilding bunkers at green1 and green 12

 Bunker at green 12 nearing completion

 Bunker at the 1st green being dug out ready for the new face

 The back tee on hole 2 is being extended to make it easier to cut and maintain, we are utilising the soil that was dug out of the 1st green side bunker for this

 the Staff have started to rebuild both greenside bunkers on hole 11 on the Craighead course

 After the heavy rain at the end of last week we managed to complete the verti-draining on the tees on Monday and now we are out slit tining the fairways to a depth of 6" on the Craighead course

 Spraying soluble iron on the Craighead fairways is on going when the weather permits

11th greenside bunkers coming on really well

 With the Craighead course on it's first winter closure we made a start to the aeration plan to the tees by verti-draining

 the 1st greenside bunker nearing completion

We managed to top-dress the Craighead course greens and surrounds and rubbed in before the weather changed on Thursday which helped wash in the dressing, we received 30mm of rain

 That's us starting our winter work programs this week first up is test holes for the peculation rate for the soak away for the new proposed toilets on the Balcomie course

 Today the par 3 tees went to winter tees so we fully divoted and then top-dressed them for the winter months

 The greenside bunker at hole 1 on the Craighead course is getting rebuilt and face raised to make it easier to enter the bunker but we will add extra sand so the bunker shot will not be any harder

 The drainage contractors made a start to our planned area in front of tees 9 & 18 on the Craighead course which is one of the wettest areas on the course