Despite the weather we are still trying to make progress on the golf course. A few fences have popped up around the course for safety reasons and presentation. In a small gap between storms we managed to finish turfing around all of the new bunkers and top them up with sand. Weather permitting we plan to have all new bunkers in play for the start of March. Work also started on clearing and reshaping the hazard at the back of the 14^th and 17^th greens. We plan to create a run off and bale out area, which will give more room around the greens and show off the stream as a feature.

There were some big machines in for a fortnight, mainly to do some drainage, clearing and shaping work for the new road (which will be starting shortly). We also managed to put in a new path around the first tee, fill and grade around the bore hole in front of the first tee and make a start on a new putting/chipping green. The bore hole has now been turfed and blends in really well and we hope to make a start on the new first tee soon. This will be ongoing throughout the season alongside the new putting/chipping green. 

More tree areas on holes 15 and 17 have been cleared, pruned and generally thinned out. This not only allows light and air in to improve the health of the remaining trees, it also enables us to cut in and around the trees to improve presentation and hopefully speed up play. When time allows throughout the year we shall continue clearing areas like this around the golf course.

We were finally able to get out and do some much needed aeration work on the greens and tees. This will relieve compaction, enable water to move through the soil profile and generally improve plant health. As the weather hopefully improves we shall start aerating the approaches and fairways. The greens also had a treatment of heavy iron, followed by a verti-cut to kill and remove moss. An organic fertiliser has also been applied to help recovery and as the weather warms up the greens will be over seeded and top dressed.

To help push the course up to another level, we have added a new John Deere rough mower to our fleet of machinery. This machine will enable us to cut and maintain more areas of rough and with a better quality of cut, it will improve the overall finish and presentation of the course.

Tom Collings