Busy times

The winds have been very cold the last few days but things are hotting up on the courses with quite a bit of work planned.  Following is a bit of a summary and as usual it is all subject to agreeable weather.

• The short practice fairway will be cored on Thursday October 20 which might cause some minor disruption to play.  We apologise in advance.
• River greens renovation will take place in earnest on Monday October 24 but we will be out on Sunday following the Mens Foursomes Championships to get a head start.  Works will include, scarifying, coring, fertlising and sanding.  The greens collars on the River course will be scarified tomorrow as there is not enough time to complete this next week.
• Fairway aeration was going to continue as I wanted to cover the fairways twice but the fairway aerating unit virtually fell apart on the last fairway yesterday.  The unit was purchased in 1975 so it has certainly done its time.
• Tees aeration / coring on both courses will take place shortly.  The cores that are removed will be rubbed back in to the surface which has two main benefits.  Firstly they will act as a top dressing and the soil is quite rich in nutrients so there will be a fertiliser effect as well.  There may be a few temporary tees or tees playing a bit different to normal as we need to let the cores dry out before rubbing them back in and not have players walking over them.
• Works on 8 River fairway drainage pipe and 6 River dam rockwall to take place commencing Monday October 24.  The 900mm pipe that links from 6 River dam to the Tweed River across 8 River fairway has a number of quite obvious sinkholes affecting it.  It is proposed to expose a small section of pipe to determine whether or not it can be successfully repaired in - situ.  The headwall at 6 River dam will have some remedial works done to repair damage from tidal movement in conjunction.
•  Oversown tees are to be lifted Friday October 28 and re turfed Monday October 31.  This is an annual task and the tees are back in play within two weeks rather than waiting for the oversown grasses to die out and the couchgrass recover.  This year we will include the rear half of 11 River tee in order to remove tree roots followed by backfilling and re-turfing.
• 17 West  green fan to be re-installed in early November.
• Tree debris pile adjacent to 6 River fairway to be mulched next week.