The great weather continues and I don't think I have seen the fairways growing like this at this time of year before.  The weather last Saturday in particular was extraordinary with the weather station in the maintenance compound recording 32 degrees.  Compare that to the weather that southern Australia experienced and you are very glad you live up here.  Football matches were called off due to players suffering from hypothermia and golf almost impossible to play with sleet and snow falling.  The photo below is from The National GC south of Melbourne.

Too cold for golf??

I had a couple of comments this week about why the West greens are being done when they are so good  with which I agree right at the moment but when you cast your mind back to the problems they experience in summer the changeover is well overdue.  I was also asked about how good they were last Saturday in the heat and that they didn't seem to suffer which is easily explained by the soil temperatures.  With the colder overnight temperatures the soil doesn't get the chance to heat up which happens in summer when the roots are literally cooked.  The works will only be quite short term pain for long term gain for the Club.

And it was nice to see another club post a photo of unrepaired pitch marks on a green which I did a few years ago to prove that we are not alone with the problem.  The photo below is from Glenelg GC in Adelaide and there are 700 balls on the green sitting on poorly repaired pitch marks.  They actually didn't get all the marks covered in time before play started coming through!!

700 pitch marks!!