Getting the Balcomie course set up for the medal, we are now having to team up staff to complete tasks in front of play with the darker mornings and the early tee times

 This week is the start of our mid week winter course closures, which allows the staff to carry out aeration and winter work plans safely and productively. The Craighead course is closed first, so we have solid tined our tees to a depth of 6" to relieve compaction plus walkways

 The Craighead fairways were all slit tined to a depth of 5"to relieve compaction and help drainage

 When the weather permits we have been cutting and collecting deep rough areas to help thin and make these areas more playable

 We have been clearing and lifting the leaves at the roadsides and the 3rd green area on the Craighead course most mornings

 We have had a real success this year with our over seeding of the Balcomie greens which was done late September

 Last week we held a familiarisation day with our local guests houses, B&B's owners and tour operators which send theirs guests to us over the years, partly to thank them and give them an insight to how we operate, what we offer and a tour of the facilities

 The Craighead course greens were lightly scarified to a depth of 7mm to take out thatch to help produce firmer surfaces

 The amount of material out per 2 greens

 Greens after verti-cut and cut, very little disturbance to the playing surfaces

 Another 18tons of sand applied to the greens & surrounds to help smooth the surfaces, fill the scarifying lines and dilute thatch

 We have trimmed back all the bushes and weeded the flower bed at the Clubhouse so not to restrict the views from the Clubhouse

 The 13th fence on the Balcomie course has been painted to protect the wood and freshen up the look of the fence

We have cut and trimmed back about 50% of the gorse right of the 8th fairway on the Balcomie course as the gorse was getting far too tall and leggy, we will wait a couple of year to allow this area to regenerate then we will cut back the other half , so not to make this area look to unsightly or baron

 This week we have been carrying out tests on our old Balcomie course irrigation system to check pressure at certain points

 We have also installed 2 new water meters at our tanks to measure our water from both the bore holes

 in-between the wet weather this week we manged to paint our storm huts on the Balcomie course

 And paint our mess room, toilets and hall floors

The next section of dyke to be rebuilt on the Craighead course at hole 15 was cut down ready, so hopefully this will be started in November. Another jobs this week were to cut most of the playing areas, an Autumn fertiliser was applied to the Balcomie course tees and catching up on fairway divoting too

 We have been out spiking weak areas on our fairways from the Summer drought to aid recovery, then seeding and top-dressing these areas, the spiking makes a small pot for the new seed

 After the aeration work last week on the Balcomie course greens - they are recovering well, we will only roll the surfaces to allow recovery then cut at a higher height of cut at 6mm instead of 4mm to allow the seed to germinate

 We have been applying irrigation each morning to wash in the top-dressing sand and keep the new seed wet to help with germination, this week we applied another 12tons of top-dressing sand to fill in any core holes still requiring topping up

 weak areas on 2nd fairway

 With applying so much sand to our greens we needed to clean out/trim the greens sprinklers not only to keep them tidy but to stop sand getting into the gearing of the sprinklers

 The old 11th medal tee on the Balcomie course is now being dug away and made into a banking as this tee can not be used since the new course toilets were built, but we will be extending the existing 11th medal tee this Autumn to cope with play

 we have applied our Autumn fertiliser to the greens over both courses to help with recovery and strengthen the plant up going into the winter months

Another task we have started this week is to cut and collect deep rough areas, this is to help make these areas more playable by taking the grass away and hopefully starving these areas of nutrients to help reduce the thickness of the grass sward for the next season

 All go this week as we have started out aeration work to the Balcomie course greens and tees

 First of all we deep spiked the greens & tees to a depth of 8" to improve drainage, air movement and relieve compaction from the season

 the greens were then rolled to smooth the surface off before we carried out coring

 the greens were then mini hollow cored to reduce thatch levels and make a pot for the overseeding

 we applied 28gm2 of traditional fescue/bent grass seed to help improve our surfaces, then a light drag to help get the seed into the core holes

 the greens and surrounds were top-dressed with sand to fill the core holes in and make a perfect bed for the new seed to germinate

 On certain greens we gave them extra aeration by using a 16mm hollow tine to take out more thatch, which will improve the surfaces

more sand to fill all the aeration holes

 Our new short game area that was just built this year is coming on really well and is now open for a few weeks before we close it for the winter period to allow it to fully establish for next season

 The weather was perfect last week to get another light top-dressing on the Craighead course greens before the rain that we got to help wash the sand into the profile

 Courses getting check by a couple of passing Chinook helicopters

 With the 12 weeks of drought we had this Summer, some of our fairways have suffered grass lose, so we borrowed a fairway disc seeder from Leven Links GC to allow us to try and get new seed into these weak areas before the end of the growing season to help recovery

 While we had this machine, we trialed it on a part of our 1st green on the Balcomie course to see what the results will be compared to our seeder

 With it coming to our financial year end, we had some money left in the budget to allow us to carry on repairing the dyke along side the Greenkeeping shed and coastal walk, this will help really tidy this area up and hopefully complete this task next year

 We have been out re-shaping the sand in the Greenside bunkers

 This week we are hosting the 2018 Ladies Senior British Open Amateur Championship on the Craighead course