This week it's the Craighead course mid week closure so the plans were to carry out more aeration work to the greens, surrounds and fairways this week, certain surrounds were hollow cored & heavy top-dressed with a bigger tines to help improve firmness

 All the greens and surrounds were mini hollow cored with a 11mm tine, cleaned up, verti-cut then cut to help control thatch levels which will in turn give us better draining greens etc

 Then the greens & surrounds etc were lightly top-dressed and rubbed in before vibrate rolling them

 The green side bunker at hole 7 has been rebuild, this bunker has a lot of traffic so this rebuild is carried out every 2 to 3 years

We have a dry stone dyker contractor in when the course is closed to rebuild the 11th wall from the fairway back down to the tees. With the Balcomie course being open its was just course set up each morning and any cutting etc required to keep things neat & tidy

 Since the start of November we have had just over 110mm of rain which has seen all our new drains work well on the Craighead course

 We have extended the rubber matting at the rear of the 6th tees on the Balcomie course to save the area getting muddy and slippy in this weather and throughout the winter months

 Both green side bunkers left at hole 3 have been rebuilt on the Balcomie course

 With all this rain we have had an issue with the car park drains starting to bubble up next to our putting green at the Clubhouse so we put in a new 25m drain into the gorse area rear of the 14th tees

5th fairway bunker on the Balcomie course has been rebuilt

 The Balcomie course is on it's winter mid week closure, so plans were to slit tine greens & surrounds, cut then top-dress and then rub in before the rain the next day

 Slit tine the fairways & semi-roughs on the Balcomie course

 Rebuild the 9th green side bunker on the Balcomie course and make slightly bigger, On the Craighead course was just daily set up each day as we are trying to keep machinery off the course for the next few days because of the wet weather we are having

We have changed our pipe work coming out our irrigation pump house to galvanised steel as we continued to have issues with the existing PVC pipe work

 With the stormy weather this week we have had some flooding but we are really lucky it drains away pretty quick

 The Balcomie course is now on it's mid week winter closure so plans were to verti-drain the tees and rebuild a couple of bunkers

 With the wet and mild weather we have had to spray a worm irritant on greens & tees to reduce worm casts on the playing surfaces

 Green side bunker at hole 10 on the Balcomie course was rebuilt

  Green side bunker at hole 11 on the Balcomie course was rebuilt

I Attended a seminar from Farmura and the BIGGA AGM this week

 We are handing cutting the greens more at this time of year to help reduce tyre marking etc on the surrounds

 With the Craighead course on it's 2nd week closure we cut, divoted then heavy top-dressed the tees to help fill all the divots and smooth off the surfaces

 Most of the week has been overcast, dull & wet but was good for seeing our lines when slit tining fairways

 We verti-drained our 3rd fairway on top of all the drainage work that was carried out 2 years ago on the Craighead course to help with surface drainage as we  felt this would work better than the slit tining

 Our dump area on the Craighead course next to tees 12 has been getting a bank made by a local contractor to help hide this area and once the grass grows up it will look more natural

 Both green side bunkers at hole 15 on the Craighead course have been rebuilt this week to replace the old worn out faces

With the continuing wet/damp and mild weather I thought it was best to apply a preventative fungicide to the Balcomie course greens because of the high disease pressure at this time of year. Work continues at the 11th wall and just general course set up and any cutting required