Can't beat being out first thing in the morning setting up the courses for play

 With the dry spell it has allowed us to catch up on some house keeping jobs, edging/weeding round the 1st tee starters hut on the Craighead course

 Another job was to re-fill and seed then heavy top-dress our recent drainage lines on hole 2 of the Craighead course

 This week seen us start to get signs of disease on our Craighead course greens called Take all patch, so we spiked the playing surfaces to help open the top 25mm up in the profile, sprayed a wetting agent/seaweed then applied a fungicide, hand drenched the greens then applied a liquid fertiliser/iron to aid in recovery

 Spraying fungicide after cutting

 Drenching the greens with wetting agent

Our wild flower area on the driving range has been a success this year again even in these dry conditions

Water, water and more water

 It looks like this dry spell is here for a while longer, which means we have been out hand watering greens and tees most days plus the automatic irrigation system on at nights

 The far end on the Balcomie course is really struggling for water as it's the further part of the course away from the pump house so water pressure is lower due to the distance plus with the system being old it will have small leaks in the pipelines

 With both courses fully booked this week with visitors due to the Open being at Carnoustie Links we have been starting at 4am to allow the staff to complete their tasks to keep ahead of play

 Courses really burnt out, so playing fast and firm

 With the reduction on cutting it has allowed us to catch up on divoting landing areas and small jobs that we struggle to get to at this time of year

 I was very lucky to get picked to go on a trip to Chicago to see the TPC John Deere run Classic course and play in the Pro am, it was great to see what is involved behind the scenes to run such an event and what goes into preparing the course in their climate

 We also got shown round the world John Deere headquarters

 This week was the start of our Club Championship over both courses, so attention was on preparing both the courses especially the greens for this

 We applied a light top-dressing of sand to both courses greens this week then a water in, this is to help keep a smooth surface and reduce thatch levels without interrupting the golf at this busy time

 The grow in of our new short game area is coming on really well

 With the continued dry spell with have applied wetting agent to our tees to help water penetrate into the profile

 Then alight water in, other tasks have been hand watering high spots on greens and surrounding areas to keep the grass plant ticking over

 I was lucky enough to get a tour with The BIGGA central section up at Carnoustie Links on the Championship course prior to The Open, great to see all the work that the guys have done to present the course in such great condition

 Great definition on both courses

 Watering in of top-dressing sand

 We are still out with hoses and sprinklers to dry areas

 The Craighead course greens were verti-cut/cut then a light top-dressing of sand which we are trying to do once a week

 The old Well at hole 16th on the Balcomie course getting some TLC

 The new short game area is coming on well, with the green getting it's first roll

 We are starting to shape the cutting around the new green and bunkers

 Heavy top-dressings of sand will continue to improve all the surrounding areas and merge the new area in with the existing area

 We have been brushing the greens before cutting to help lift lateral growth to give a better cut, especially on the Balcomie course as these are old traditional greens

 Thanks to Les Rae for having us up to look at the Environment projects etc they carryout and coastal erosion issues they face at Montrose Links

True Links

 With no rain in the last month, both our courses are really drying out and playing like true Links

 We are making sure we keep applying our wetting agent program to make sure we reduce water run off and get the water where we want it in this dry spell

 The last few days we have been out hand watering areas that really struggle or don't have sprinklers etc over both courses

 With the irrigation system running 24/7 just now we are continuing to fire fight issues with our Balcomie course system with old sprinklers and bursts

 Hand watering high spots

 We have been also brushing our greens before cutting to give us a better cut by brushing the grass more upright

 We have been able to keep up with our weekly top-dressing program of sand to the Craighead courses greens with the good dry weather

 That's us at last managed to seed our new short game area green on our Driving range and all the surrounds have been turfed, the next job is too screen sand for the new bunkers over the next few weeks and hopefully have it in play for the end of August weather pending

 Our new irrigation at our short game area will help establish all the areas etc

Short game areas first cut on all the surrounding areas