WEATHER
October
was reasonably settled apart from a very wet period in the middle of the month
which again caused serious flooding on parts of the courses as the Barry Burn
burst its banks.
WORK ON THE
LINKS
The
favourable weather at the start of the month allowed for any renovation work to
continue without hindrance with scarifying, coring, seeding and top dressing
being the main tasks.
The
flooding of the Barry Burn on the 12th of the month meant that there
was a big clean up required afterwards with silt removal, aeration and top
dressing taking place for a fortnight afterwards in order to get the affected
areas back into suitable and safe areas to play from. The 3rd hole
of the Burnside remained closed right through October.
CHAMPIONSHIP
COURSE
A
spray of Sulphate of Iron & fungicide and an Autumn/Winter fertiliser mix
were both made to the greens prior them being verti-cut and being overseeded with
fescue using both the Dyna-seeders and a disc seeder borrowed from Panmure Golf
Club. They were top dressed thereafter to keep surfaces smooth and were
Hydro-jected towards the end of the month.
Other
work
·
Heavy
trafficked and Hogan tee’s were hollow cored, seeded, top dressed and fed
·
Surround
and approaches were top dressed and fed as required
·
Weaker
patches on fairways were overseeded
·
Cutting
thick/poorer roughs continued as required
·
10th
green along with 10th & 11th fairways were hollow
cored, top dressed and verti-drained to help dilute the silt and alleviate the
flood left from the Barry bursting its banks
·
Pumping
flood water as required
·
Adding
sand to flooded bunkers
·
Raising
greenside sprinklers as required
·
Granular
Sulphate of Iron applied to areas with worm cast problem
·
Hollow
between 18th green and 1st tee was raised to try and
prevent golfers exiting the course via the 1st tee
BURNSIDE
Selected
greens, areas of greens and approaches were deep scarified and/or solid tined
followed by being top dressed.
Other
work
·
Weed
removal from Burn at 3rd/4th
·
Continued
cutting back of thick roughs
·
Tee’s
fertilised as required
·
Winter
tee’s and heavy trafficked areas verti-drained
·
Hand
weeding of operator pollinator area in trees at 16th
·
Pumping
water and removing silt from affected areas.
BUDDON
LINKS
Greens
were top dressed twice and received an application of 4:0:8 fertiliser. The 1st
and practice greens were deep scarified and overseeded with fescue.
Other
work
·
4th,
7th and 9th fairways were deep scarified and top dressed
·
16th
fairway was overseeded with fescue using disc seeder
·
Ditches
cleaned
·
Pumping
water from practice ground
New
Holes
The
new seed is establishing reasonably well although there have been some isolated
pockets of disease. The whole area was
fed, sprayed with fungicide, and rolled through October and any remaining
posts, rope and exposed stones being removed from the site.
The
2 walkways over the ditch at the left of the new 10th hole and the
traffic route in front of the new 11th tee were turfed using turf
from our nursery.
·
We
had Neil Christie from NPORS on site to carry out training and assessing on the
use of the forklift, digger and tractors with 12 members of staff gaining
qualifications (4 in each category)
·
Ron
Brown, the retired foreman of the Dick Precast works, came in to teach one of
the members of staff, Derek Murray, how to make the concrete decking we use for
bridges on the courses
·
3
members of staff along with John Philp had a day trip to visit Muirfield GC and
The Renaissance Club in East Lothian
·
I
attended an Appraisal training course in Aberdeen
Sandy
Reid
Links
Superintendent
8th
November 2012
