Lucky so far

Well so far so good with the rainfall as we have missed most of the worst of it.  Reports of ten plus inches at some locations further up the Gold Coast although mainly inland.  We have had just under 3 inches since last Wednesday with constant "scuds" coming through which can be a bit annoying for the staff as no sooner do they get their rain gear on, the sun is back out to bake them.  A few Gold Coast courses are currently closed due to flooding and many have their bunkers out of play due to washouts and flooding.

One thing the rain and humidity is creating is grass growth and plenty of it.  The fertiliser on the fairways has also now well and truly kicked in and a growth regulator has been applied to them.  The growth regulator slows down the growth by at least half and also prevents seed head from developing on the Couchgrass which helps with aesthetics and cuts down the frequency with which mowing is required.  With 33 hectares of fairways and two mowers we are doing our best to keep up.

The Greg Norman tournament next week also affects what we can do on the courses as we can only mow on the River course in front of the field and then come back over to the West course.  At least the week leading into Christmas is normally a bit quieter on the golfing front so we have a good opportunity to catch up then.  A four day break over Christmas will also affect how much mowing we can get done. 

We are finding it hard to keep up with the roughs and that will probably only get worse. The roughs are the areas that receive most complaints at this time of year and with the growth rate we are experiencing we can only mow all the rough on both courses once in a week if we don't have any machine downtime.  So in a word be prepared for some searching for balls if you hit it in the rough in the coming weeks.