Thursday 23 June 2016

 It's been all go with the spurt in growth from the rain we had last week with cutting of all areas
 We try to spike the greens on both courses every 2 weeks to help break up surface compaction and allow water etc into the profile
 A job that was badly needing done was to verti-cut all the tees on both courses

 Tadpoles getting bigger
 We have made a start to preparing our turf nursery for seeding etc
 All bunkers faces over both courses have been cut, blown and cleaned
We have had to spike and seed an area on green 15 of the Balcomie course, as it has been burnt by Seagull droppings

Friday 17 June 2016

 What a great visit to the Hickory golf club at Kingarrock Estate, where Owen Browne gave us a tour of what they are trying to achieve in the way of 1920's greenkeeping practices etc, well worth a visit and a game
 An old set of trailed gangs for cutting the fairways, tees and semi-roughs
 Owen telling us about how they manage the greens
 The sheep in the back ground controlling their deep roughs
 Back to Crail. We have been testing any old sprinkler head we have and repairing them to be reused in the future
 With the wet weather we have been up cleaning and blowing the car parks and making sure the shoe cleaner is kept clean each morning
 This week seen a slight attack of disease with the damp/wet conditions on the greens so we have been out spraying a systemic fungicide to control this before getting any scarring
Both courses have really greened up again and we are cutting a lot more grass over all areas

Friday 10 June 2016

 Great to see the new buds coming through on the gorse that was cut back in the winter months
 Profile view of the Craighead course greens 5 weeks after the major aeration work
 It's that time of year when we are repairing irrigation bursts on the Balcomie course
 Replacing damaged tee sprinklers
 With the dry spell we have been out watering, plus the automatic irrigation system has been on at nights too
 Courses starting to dry up and play like a true Links
Most tasks this week have been keeping on top of cutting all areas and lightly scarifying the Balcomie course fairways which was started last week

Friday 3 June 2016

 Busy  busy as we are at full cutting now plus we are trying to turf iron greens when possible to help keep a good surface speed
 We have an old concrete diesel tank bund at our dump area that we left for wildlife and now we have tadpoles just hatched
 watering walkways etc as the courses are starting to dry up
 At least once a week we are brushing the greens before cutting to help stand the grass up for a better cut
 It's that time of year when we start ti lightly scarify our fairways to help cut out long ends and lateral growth, this will be on going for the next month
 The drainage lines on the Craighead are continuously being heavily top-dressed etc to produce a smooth surface, this will be on going
I took the chance to tidy up and make brackets etc for all our hole cutting tools for each course