The big thaw at last

We have been working away at the 15th tee path on the Balcomie course, digging in and cementing in our strainer posts for bolting the railway sleeper wall to round the tee side of the path

 These will now be left to allow to set before carrying on with this project

 After the frost came out the ground we got all our green hand cut to help tidy up the surfaces and a roll, holes changed and bunkers raked

Our next winter project is to re-level the 16th tee on the Balcomie course, all the old turf was reused on other winter projects so not to waste any materials

All the work at the 13th path on the Balcomie course has now been completed

 Adverse weather jobs have been to continue to paint tee posts and markers, having completed all the painting/repairs to all the tee benches

 One of our members was out with his drone taking some pictures on Monday afternoon of the Balcomie course

 With the weather turning cold, we have had to change our plans, so we have made a start to edging, weeding and topping up our tee paths

 work continues at the 13th path on the Balcomie course

 We have drained down both our irrigation systems and pumps

 We have started work on the 15th tee path on the Balcomie course, which entails widening the path and building a railway sleeper wall along the tees

 Our new steps are now built into the front of the 11th medal tee on the Balcomie course

 Adverse weather jobs have been to cut/trim back gorse & broom at holes 1 , 4 & 16 on the Craighead course as we can get to these areas without causing damage to playing areas

 We have been doing our bit for the Environment this week by building a bug hotel, which will hopefully be beneficial to our local insects, bugs and lichen etc, this has been placed between holes 11 & 12 on the Craighead course where we just installed the underground electric cables, this area will be seeded out in the spring and left to go wild for nature as out of play

 Another adverse weather job was to fully clean our shed and was a good chance to run all our machinery in these cold conditions

The tee benches on both courses have been repaired and painted ready for this season

Aeration

 This week the Craighead course is on it's mid week winter closure to allow us to carry out maintenance, which was to needle tine the greens to 150mm to relieve compaction and open up the profile 

 Then the greens were slowly turf ironed to help smooth the surface and holes changed ready for play

 Surrounds were cut also to clean up any marks from the solid tining of the greens

 The Craighead course tees were also solid tined to 150mm for the same reason as the greens but with a larger tine then cut

 The Craighead course greens were also sprayed with liquid iron to help harden up the grass plant

The Craighead course fairways were slit tined for the 4th time this winter then cut to tidy the surface up

 On Tuesday afternoon all the CGS staff attended a training course on the use of the defibrillator

 We have replaced our tires on one of our John Deere tractors to larger flotation tires as this is less aggressive on the turf especially when working on or near greens plus add a little more stability to the tractor

 With the mild weather we took the chance to paint the front area at the ball dispenser at the Pro shop

We have started to build our new steps for the 11th medal tee on the Balcomie course

Happy New Year

 Welcome to 2019, its been a very mild Xmas break, so the staff have been out catching up on any cutting required

 the rebuilding of the dyke front left of the 15th yellow tees on the Craighead course has been rebuilt, all it's left to do is clean up the spare soil and stones and re-turf along the bottom of the dyke, it's great seeing these dykes being rebuilt bring back the history and features of this land as it was before the golf course

 work is still ongoing on the 11th medal tee on the Balcomie course

 Surrounds of the tee being turfed and the teeing ground ready for turf, we will build new steps at the front corner of the tee to allow better and safer access

 We are still working on the repairs and clean up from the Scottishpower works

 Work has started on repairing the 13th road on the Balcomie course from the Scottishpower works and replacing all the damaged drains plus we will add another 2 drains in to help reduce water damaged when we get heavy rain in the future

Larger soakaways have been added to help cope better with the rain