Quite a busy week on the courses with the dry and the heat continuing.  The River greens have bounced back from their renovation in the fastest time I have seen and are looking and putting very well.  The West greens are entering the "stress" time with heat and humidity on the rise.  Once again this week the constant north wind has made irrigation very difficult across the courses but they are both holding up extremely well under the circumstances.

13 River green continues to develop and is covering in nicely.  The green was mown 4 times this week and received the first of many upcoming sandings to start grooming the surface down to playing level.  The green has obviously had a large amount of water applied during establishment and whilst establishment has been good the water itself can present its own range of problems with the high salt content restricting the new turf.  The expected rainfall on the week end should see a great improvement in the health of turf and even faster growth.

First sanding on 13R green.

Nearly 5 tonne of fertiliser was put out on the West fairways this week so hopefully the predicted rain will arrive.  If not we will just have to keep the irrigation going at the level it has been at over the past several weeks to water the fertiliser in.  Actually the motorised buggies do a pretty good job of breaking it up and moving it into the thatch / soil layer anyway however we lose some of the long term capabilities of the fertiliser when this happens..  The fertilising is the reason there are so many wheel marks visible at the moment on West course fairways this week.