Friday 17th March
Another big week for the team tying up some very important workloads and with some unforeseen additional drainage works in really challenging weather conditions.
14th Bunkers surrounds
500m2 (7x pallets) of turf arrived late on Monday afternoon, we made the most of the late delivery and managed to prepare 400m2 of the rootzone ready to lay turf first thing Tuesday morning.
We got out sharp Tuesday morning and got off to a great start until the snow blizzards came down around 9.00 am. We persevered with the guys blowing the snow off the turf and rootzone with backpack blowers, just to keep us progressing, but that meant we would need to prepare the rootzone again so, it was a bit stop and start, but we cracked on until the 2nd dump of snow came down just after lunch… We battled through around 400m2 of turf down, we considered minus -5 temps the next day would have put a stop to our progress so we decided to maximise the blue skies and some of the team worked on to get all of the new turf down, that was a tremendous effort! A long taxing day for the team but rewarding to see it down.
We still have one open area left of the 14th green.
We just need to remove a thatch layer and re-turf it and it will be complete Monday.
The guys that worked late had a late start the next morning to have a well earned rest and let the frost lift.
We had a couple of drainage issues on the front of the 11th approach to green, after some heavy downpour’s we had more standing water than we are used to seeing, this was as a result of us building up the bunker banks. Apparently the water would run into the bunker on the left before…
We decided to act and added some additional drainage which has now been installed with 2x sump soakaways in the lower spots to relieve surface water in heavy rains. It was tested today with some monsoon like showers and stood the test!
It has been a very productive week and considering the conditions we have maximised our progress.
We will be back into base out the 14th bunkers Monday & Tuesday next week in preparation for the capilary concrete , now scheduled for Wednesday, we will do all 6 new bunkers at 11 & 14 on Wednesday.
They will be covered to dry for 48 hours.
We will focus on course set up and presentation Thursday, Friday & Sat for the Captains Challenge.
We had planned to have all new sand installed to new bunkers for the Captains challenge but the delivery has let us down, sand will be installed for the April medal, 11th and 14th Bunkers will all be in play.
16 & 18th Greens
We have got the 16th & 18th greens back in play, they do need some sand dressing weekly to level out any imperfections so expect to see them a tad sandy over the next few weeks.
Quick note to highlight that the course is currently at its weakest point with germination being dormant for so long now and continued traffic taking its toll. We would just ask for a bit of patience as germination temps are just around the corner and then we can get some much needed seed in the ground to recover all weak spots and bring the course conditions up to standards.
Killermont, Greens Team
