It's all go this week trying to get back to some course winter work projects, The removing of all the overhead electric cables has taken up a lot of our time in the last 3 weeks and will do until the middle of January but great to see all the electric lines down now

 We have started work again on extending and leveling our 11th medal tee on the Balcomie course and we have also re-positioned the sprinkler head and added in another sprinkler head to give us much better water coverage 

 A nice loamy topsoil has been added to help us retain nutrients and moisture in the soil profile, as before the profile was just pure sand and dried out very quickly

 We had slight damage to our storm hut in-between holes 8 & 9 on the Balcomie course from the high winds at the weekend, this has been repaired now

 The rebuilding of the dyke in front of tees 15 on the Craighead course is starting to take shape

 We have now manage to back-fill all the new electric trenches through the driving range car park, clean up, add 40 tons of red chips, rake and level off the surface to complete the repair works to this area and now this car park is back open with no electric poles to be seen

 Another area that we repaired and re-turfed was in-between tees 11 on the Craighead course where they took down 2 electric poles

 Our Club Captain Pam Smith has came to the end of her term and came down to thank all the Greenstaff for their hard work over her term, and gave us boxes of biscuits, the small things go a long way in making us feel part of the CGS team

 On the course we have been mostly concentrating on all the Scottishpower work that has been ongoing for the last 3 weeks, but have been keeping up with the courses set up each day and any cutting required

 All the overhead cables & poles are now down and a new electric cable has been buried throughout the property

 The big clean up is well underway and we are hoping to get most of this completed before our Xmas break, then it all completed by middle of January weather permitting

 The guys have done a great job in repairing and turfing all the trenches that are in play

 More large rocks out the trenches

 More trenches turfed

 We have managed to complete most of the works round the main car parks so we can get all the spaces back open and we gave the car park and good power wash to clean up all the mess

 the area rear of the main car park was dug out and bordered off, material laid then new white chips to fit in with other areas in this area, plus less maintenance in the future

 Hopefully this looks much tidier than the grass. the future plans will be to re-locate the tank for the Clubhouse heating system and reduce the size of the tank which would really improve the views and this area

 This area was all cleaned up and new chips added

 The 16th Greenside bunker on the Balcomie course has been rebuilt

The dyke front left of the 15th yellow tee on the Craighead course has been started to get rebuilt, this will be ongoing into the new year and any repairs to walls that were damaged from the burying of the new electric cables

 The guys busy setting the course up for play, we are starting to use the hand mowers for cutting greens when possible

 Both front green side bunkers on hole 12 on the Craighead course have been rebuilt as their faces were worn out from play

 This week is the start of burying all the overhead electric cables from the bottom of our driving range, through both our car parks and on holes 11 & 12 on the Craighead course, this project will hopefully be completed in 2 to 3 weeks then another week or 2 for all the clearing up etc

 the new cable will be ducted on all areas for protection

 The contractors have hit a lot of rock especially at holes 11 & 12 on the Craighead course

 more rock, so they have had to use a picker to break through to get the correct depths for laying the new cables

 New cable ready to be installed into the duct. These poles will all be taken down in the next couple of days

The Greenstaff will carry out all the clearing up and re-instating of the areas where possible

 This week we have made a start to rebuilding and extending the 11th medal tee on the Balcomie course

 We are replacing the top 8" of sandy soil on the tee to make it a little richer in soil to help improve the playing surfaces in the droughts as this tee has always struggled in these conditions

 bunker right of the 1st green on the Balcomie course has been rebuilt

 the 9th fairway bunker on the Balcomie course has been rebuilt

 All fairways on the Balcomie course have been sprayed with iron to help harden the grass plant through the winter months, also the 2nd fairway had an application of fert/seaweed as it has struggled through the summer drought, plus this will help the new seed that we put down

 front green-side bunker on hole 7 of the Craighead course is being rebuilt

an operation we carry out each year on all the drainage areas that we have completed in the last 6 years or so on the Craighead course is to disc aerate these areas to 5" to open up the surfaces going into the winter months to connect the surface profile to the drainage to aid air and water movement

this year we applied a heavy sand top-dressing to help smooth the surfaces of these drainage areas before aerating, this should also help incorporate a little sand into the soil profile

Great achievement for the Greenstaff

 This week saw our Balcomie course receive the award for best golf course between £50-£100 green fee at the Scottish golf tourism awards, well done guys

 We have been busy building bunkers again this week, the 10th greenside on the Craighead course has been rebuilt

 The Craighead course fairways have been double slit tined again this week to relieve as much surface compaction as possible

 The 7th greenside bunker on the Craighead course has been rebuilt this week

 This week as we do once a year is to get our local drainage contractor in to carry out work to our 2nd fairway on the Craighead course

 We have installed a main 4" pipe round the fairway to be used to take the water off the surface of the fairway

 the pipe has been installed to a depth of 700mm, with 10-20mm gravel then 2-6mm grit then rootzone on top and the pipe line re-turfed

 We have started to install gravel banding across the fairway which will all lead into the new main drain to take the water away from the fairway

this fairway drainage will be completed next year to fit in with our planned budgets, then we will move on to another area on the course, all going well we will have our planned drainage project completed in the next 5/6 years on the Craighead course