The wind has certainly been the major player for course maintenance and playing the game this week.  Not only its strength but also the wind chill factor made it an uncomfortable week.  Only the one major tree came down which was late on Friday at the back of the first green.  The debris on the fairways detracts from the courses aesthetics and the number of leaves and branch debris in the roughs makes it most difficult to find golf balls.  The rotary outfront mowers were out in force on the roughs and fairways trying to clean up as much as possible.  They are fitted with "mulching blades" that smash up the leaves and debris leaving a much cleaner surface but the constant wind doesn't help.

Tree down

 Speaking of the wind, a website I have mentioned before - Willy Weather - has a few new features including a "wind rose" which plots the wind directions for the current month and the average over the past five years.  I knew we had a lot of southerlies but was surprised that wind from the south or SSW / SSE accounts for 37% of our wind compared with 20% from the north and NNE / NNW so nearly twice the number of southerlies.  Here's a link to the wind information;
http://wind.willyweather.com.au/nsw/far-north-coast/tweed-heads.html

The West greens have recovered very well from the renovation though repair of pitch marks is pretty disappointing with the greens badly scarred which further prolongs their recovery.  The mowing height is nearly back to normal but the lush growth still needs to slow down for the fine surface to return.  The ducks have been feasting on them leaving their droppings to interfere with play so I thought I would try the fake decoy Hawk but it unfortunately didn't work.  It certainly got the Magpies upset as can be seen in the video below from 12W green and is doing a fine job down on 5W green keeping the Cockatoos off the green.    

And Jason Day has set the golf world on fire of late but I got the screenshot below watching the golf this week and it shows just how dominant Tiger was at the peak of his game.  Astounding really. 

An extraordinary record