Air and more air

 That's the start of our mid week winter course closures with the Craighead course being closed first, so we have taken this chance to carry out deep aeration to our greens, tees & fairways

 this will allow them to drain and breath going into the winter months

 then the greens and surrounds had an application of sand top-dressing to help dilute thatch and improve the surfaces

 the Ladies 1st tee was stripped then leveled then re-turfed

 All the fairways were slit tined

 Then once the greens were completed we replaced the tines with the larger ones for deep tining the tees

 Then sand top-dressing applied to the tees for the same reason as the greens & surrounds

 Our newly turfed bank round our dump area has had considerable amounts of damage from badgers

 Our new material bays are nearing completion with only the concrete flooring to be done next week

 Last Saturday I did a talk/tour of the Greenkeeping department to our Club members to give them a insight in to how things run and managed on and off the courses

 We have started work on our new short game area on our driving range, which will consist of a new green and 3 new bunkers etc

 With the mild weather we are still carrying out a lot of cutting to keep on top of things over both the courses

 to help harden the greens and surrounds up we have applied a little liquid feed and iron

 we have been out hand weeding greens again to control daises

 The gorse management plan is working great with re growth at the area at the 2nd fairway already

We have replaced our old tines on our fairway spiker ready for next week to relieve compaction from all the summer play and cutting etc, the old tines lasted 4 years

 We took the chance with the good weather to apply more top-dressing sand to the Craighead course greens and surrounds after they were cut this week

 We carried out 16mm hollow coring, clean up, cut, over seed, heavy top-dress and rub in to the 1st & 17th tees on the Balcomie course to help improve these tees

 It's that time of year that the leaves are falling from the trees at the roadside behind green 3 of the Craighead course, we will be blowing and clearing them up every couple of days

Cutting and collecting of the deep roughs is still ongoing when the weather permits

 This week we have been fixing any problems with our irrigation system on the Balcomie course

 We have been out deep tining the Craighead course tees to relieve compaction

 A problem area on our putting has been deep bored to 2' and then the heavy soil replaced with rootzone sand to improve the drainage

 with the drier weather we have started to cut and collect areas of deep rough again

 Great job by the guys getting the Craighead course set up for the Mid Amateur event on Friday and Saturday with it being a 2 tee start at 8.15am, which was tight time wise with the darker mornings

 the par 3 tees over both courses have had a heavy top-dressing to help smooth off the surface after a very busy season, this will be done again in about a months time before going onto winter tee mats on these holes

 With heading into the winter months and temperatures are starting to drop, we have raised the height of cut on both our greens mowers to help protect the plant, plus help the new seed that was planted last week on the Balcomie course greens etc