We have sprayed a liquid fert & iron on the Craighead greens to give the plant some more nutrients

 As it's coming to the end of the season and the nesting birds will be away from the nests we have started to cut & collect our deep roughs on the Craighead course, this should help to thin these areas out and make them more playable next year, the roughs have been thicker this year due to the rain fall we have had this Summer

 Still at full cutting of all playing surfaces over both courses

 This week we started our aeration plans to the Craighead course tees, which consists of double scarifying at 8mm, double verti-cutting, tidying up then cutting, this is to reduce thatch levels on the surfaces

 Our new shed extension has started at our main Green-keeping shed, this is to allow us to demolish our existing shed and old irrigation tanks on the driving range which will let us put the new irrigation tank & pump-house closer to the bank to help hide these plus redevelop the driving range in the future

 removal of the spoil to make way for the foundations

 hardcore being laid under the flooring

 foundations being dug for the steelworks

 Concrete poured and left to set before the steelworks come on site

torrential rain

 This August is the complete opposite from last August, we have already had 105mm of rain in the first 10 days of the month which has caused us lots of problems from flooding and the local farmers fields flooding then coming onto our courses

 9th green & surround on the Balcomie course

 front 9th green side bunker on the Balcomie course

 hole 9 on the Balcomie course

 hole 10 on the Balcomie course

 flooding on 10th & 11th fairways on the Balcomie course

 3rd green on the Balcomie course

 holes 14 & 15 on the Craighead course

 The big clean up begins, we tried to wash as much silt/soil of our 9th green

 digging off the silt from the surfaces of the bunkers

 All our tee paths were washed out

 Courses getting back to normal

Back to our routine tasks after the clean up, great teamwork to get everything back to normal

Scottish Men's Amateur Championships

 It's been a very busy time the last few weeks setting up both our courses for holding the Scottish Men's Amateur Championships with a field of 264 players. Practice rounds over both courses on the Sunday & Monday, Qualifying over both courses on the Tuesday & Wednesday, Match-play with the best 64 players from the field from the Thursday on the Craighead course through to the Saturday - 2 rounds each day 

 Hole 14 on the Craighead course

 Hole 13 on the Balcomie course

 Greens 1 & 12 on the Balcomie course

 18th hole on the Balcomie course

 Balcomie course 1st tee set up ready for play

 Craighead course 1st tee set up ready for play

We rolled our greens on both courses daily straight after cutting to try to get decent surface speed as we have been struggling with the wet & very warm weather, which is ideal for the grass to be growing so vigorously

 17th green on the Craighead course, holes changed each morning on both our courses

 7th medal tee on the Craighead course, tees were cleaned up, divoted and cut on both courses each morning

 Surrounds cut each morning

Fairways over both courses were cut alternative days through out the Championship and the harder growing fairways were cut daily in front of play

 When the staff's first jobs were completed we were back out to divot landing areas, setting machinery for the next days use and odd jobs 

for the duration of the Championship all the Greenstaff started at 4am to get as much cutting and prep work completed in front of play then back out at night to clean up and set up the driving range for the next days practicing

 17th green on the Balcomie course

 Another job was to get as much semi-roughs cut as possible over both courses

 11th hole on the Balcomie course

All mowers out to keep in front of play each day. A big thank you to both Companies Double A (John Deere)& Reesink (Toro)for lending us demo machinery before and during the Championship