Monday 6th October 2014.

RENOVATION PERIOD.

Course renovation practices will commence on Monday 13th October.

Coring of tees, fairways and green surrounds will take place first and every effort will be made to not inconvenience play of the course but it will be unavoidable to not create some degree of disturbance.

Please have patience and take care when playing around Groundstaff conducting this work.

Tee, fairway and green surround coring will be interrupted the week commencing Monday 20th October when greens coring and topdressing will take precedence.

Friday 12th September 2014.

Groundstaff have been working this week on repairs to the lower pond wall.

A couple of sections of the wall were collapsing into the lake and blocks required removal, clean up and replacement.

Friday 5th September 2014.

Staff have been concentrating on necessary bunker work over the past month. A priority list of bunkers requiring work has been established and we are focusing many of our hours to this work.

This has primarily involved the removal of excess sand off the bunker face and relocation back to the base of the bunker. Over time sand is hit from the base to the face and this softens the angle of the face and in turn encourages buried lies and golf balls to finish on the face.

We have also looked at adding more bunker sand to some bunkers to reduce the big step off and improve both pedestrian and machinery access. This seems to occur more often in newly constructed bunkers as over time the newly constructed bunker sand to compacts and when this eventuates bunker base levels drop.

Members can help their cause by correctly raking bunkers when leaving. If 2 hands are used to level and rake sand a better finish can be achieved. This is particularly important if you have to play a shot from the face. The rake should be turned over when leveling the face using the smooth side of the rake to leave a smooth finish. This will help to reduce the likelihood of a golfer behind getting a buried lie and having to climb the face to play their next shot and hopefully breaking the circle of buried lies.

It won't eliminate it but it may help!!

Excess sand is removed from face with skid steer and face steepened. Base leveled.

Once machinery has finished, final shaping and smoothing is completed by hand.

Golfers can do more to help each others experience!!!!

This photo was taken early in the morning of Thursday 4th Sept after a Wednesday afternoon competition. Obviously the golfer entered the bunker at the wrong point to reduce the amount of raking. They then finished it off by using the toothed side of the rake and replaced it incorrectly!!!

Friday 13th June 2014.

I have been requested to publish stimpmeter readings on the blog for those members interested and shall do so once/week generally on a Friday. They shall also be displayed on the Local Rules board outside the Men's changerooms.

Readings are conducted on the same area of a designated green to achieve consistency with these readings from one week to the next. Obviously the goal in preparing putting surfaces is to make them as consistent as possible but this his very hard to achieve due to many factors that influence speed such as age, thatch levels, design contours etc.

Green speed this Friday are at 11'8" which fits into the medium to fast range.

Very Fast      13' - ^
Fast               12' - 13'
Med / Fast     11' - 12'
Medium         10' - 11'
Slow              9' - 10'
Very Slow      8' - 9'

Monday 9th June 2014.

By now most members would be aware of the damage to the 8th and 12th greens, 12th and 13th fairways and 8th tee that was caused by idiots in their car on Tuesday 28th May overnight.

Needless to say, staff were mortified when we realised what had happened to our course and we contacted Police to report the incident and have them attend the scene for forensic purposes.

Once this was completed we set to the task of repairing the damage.

We now finally find ourselves at the point where we have done what we can to repair the damage and now just await the grow-in of the new turf.

Both these greens are now fully in play with Local Rules applying for relief should your ball finish on an area of new turf. To hasten recovery we ask members avoid walking on new turf where possible.

Obviously these areas will play differently for some time but we shall continue to nurture these sites over the coming months. They will take some time to fully recover due to the time of year.

I thank my staff for their efforts over the past fortnight or so. They worked quickly to get the greens in particular back into play.

8th Green.

12th Green.

Early morning clean-up and repair of the greens surface.

Following the re-turfing and patching.

At grow-in stage today.

Friday 16th May 2014.

The course is almost prepared for the 2nd and 3rd rounds of the Club Championships this weekend.

Putting green speeds have increased a little this week with the drier weather conditions jumping from low 11's to 11'8".

Good luck to all those playing this weekend.

Monday 12th May 2014.

With the Club Championships commencing last weekend the team have been very busy preparing the course.
Part of this preparation has involved the leveling of our bunker bases in order to present bunkers the best we can for play over the coming weeks.

With some bunkers this has involved the use of our skid steer loader to move sand off the face where it accumulates after the playing of bunker shots and returning it to the base of the bunker to fill the uneven floor and return the bunker to a more level state.

Members can help reduce the incidence of downhill stances in bunkers by always pushing away the sand when raking and not dragging back to the bunker edge. All bunker rakes are double-sided to allow you to turn it over and force sand away then rake.

We know this practice takes a little more labour but it will be a positive step forward in helping produce the best possible playing conditions.

Moving sand around in bunker to level base.

Hand working sand to blend even.

Final raking with bunker machine.

Finished product. A firm (but not too firm) bunker with a level base.