Great definition on the courses, holes 15 & 17 on the Balcomie course

 holes 5 & 6 on the Balcomie course

 hole 14 on the Craighead course

 We have installed a marker pole on our 2nd fairway on the Balcomie course to help visitors play to the correct fairway which will hopefully help pace of play at holes 2 & 12

 With this dry spell continuing, we have been out hand watering and applying more wetting agent to allow better penetration of the water into the soil profile

 We are now at full growth on all areas, so to help maintain our greens we have been brushing the grass before cutting to help lift any lateral growth, gaining a better cut and finish

 This week saw us start our aeration program to the Craighead course greens, which consists of deep solid tining using a 10mm tine to a depth of 200mm to relieve compaction and improve air and water movement and then hopefully encourage deeper rooting

 then the greens were turf ironed to smooth off the surface before the next process

 next was to scarify in 2 directions to rip out thatch to a depth of 6mm, then verti-cut and cut to clean the surfaces up. Our aim is to reduce our organic matter level in the top 20mm of the soil profile to gain firmer and healthier greens

 This is the amount of thatch taken out of each green from the scarifying and verti-cutting

next stage is to improve the grass species on the playing surfaces, so we have over seeded with fescue seed then again with bent seed at different depths to give us the best chance of germination over the next few weeks

then after that we have applied 1 ton of sand onto each green to help cover the seed, fill in any holes and help dilute the thatch levels even more on the surfaces, the greens have been rubbed in to work the sand into the soil profile then surfaces watered, the top-dressing process will be repeated again next week to apply another 0.5 tons per green which will aid in the surfaces recovery