Not much to report on this week although the mowers certainly got a run for their money this past four day week.  To be honest when I saw the courses on Monday night with the amount of grass out there I didn't think there would be any chance that the courses would look the way they do in the four days this cooler Friday afternoon.  Great credit to the course staff for their input this week to get the job done.

Speaking of mowers, one of the big expense lines in the course maintenance budget is fuel and I was doing my fuel figures for March this week and thought I would share some of them with followers of the Blog.  The majority of our machines use diesel fuel, particularly the mowing equipment with most smaller equipment using unleaded.  We also have 3 electric runabout utility vehicles and the greens rollers are all electric.  In March we used 3,478 litres of Diesel at an average cost of $1.32 adding up to a cost of $4,590 for the month.  The fairway mowers used 957L at a cost of $1,263, the rough mowers 1,178L at a cost of $1,554, the intermediate and greens surrounds mowers 566L at a cost of $747 and the greens mowers 218L at a cost of $288.  The bunker raking machines used 322L of unleaded at a cost of $432 for the month.  

Almost all the turf equipment supply companies have all tried alternative fuels, particularly battery powered and to date none have been overly successful in being able to operate at full speed for the time required.  A couple are now close and it will be interesting to watch developments in this area over the coming years.  They have mainly been waiting for the automotive industry to move one way or another so they can then follow suit.

It was interesting watching the Masters start and a couple of USA Course Supers commenting on the first days pin placement sheet saying that they place the flags on their own greens using the template which provides some very interesting placements on their courses!!  The sheet is below and would certainly make for some interesting locations on the undulating River greens here at Cool Tweed.  7 on and 6 from the right wouldn't be all that accessible on 15 River but at least you wouldn't get the result Sergio got!!  Although it was remarkable how cool he stayed with what was shown on the telecast considering his fiery history.