A good week for the courses this week with two good dumpings of rain of 13mm each and mostly at night so no effect on the golf but a great effect on the turf.  There is nothing as good as rainfall for a golf course.  Greens on both courses were sanded this past week with a mix that contains some organic material and some gypsum.  The white fleck / granules visible on the West greens is the gypsum that has a hard time dissolving and mixing in to the very tight surface but is so fine has no effect on ball roll.

While we were commissioning the new pump control unit last week we had to de-pressurise the system several times which puts some dangerous air into the pipe network as we refill the lines and that soon exposes any weak pipe areas as it did on Tuesday morning when a mailine burst in front of 13R green.  A couple of other niggly problems connected with the installation but overall the pumps are operating very well.

A short week next week with the public holiday on Monday followed by a 2 tee start for the Ladies on Wednesday, a normal members comp on Wednesday and Friday and a double shotgun start for the veterans on Thursday.  Somewhere in between all that we will try and get the West course prepped for the first round of the Club Champs which is a 4 tee 6.30am start on Saturday!!!!

Well the golfing world was certainly abuzz with Tigers win last week end and the upcoming Ryder Cup.  The small fields at both East Lake last week and at the Ryder Cup certainly help course presentation, particularly greens, but the word from the volunteers is that the turf at Le Golf National this week eclipses East Lake for the most pure turf they have ever seen.  The regular course staff levels at Golf National is 35 and that ramps up to 80 when they annually host the French Open.  This week for the Ryder Cup there will be 180.  That's right 180.

Photos below show;  

• Attention to detail pressure cleaning the dam bulkheads.
• Attention to detail using hand scissors to trim encroaching runners.
• The 7,000 seat grandstand at the 1st tee.
• The 12 (twelve) fairway mowers on their way out to do their 
• And lastly I have seen a video of the green in the photo below on the first practice day with 25 people concurrently working on it to mow the green, rake the two bunkers and change the hole. 

Pressure cleaning.

Hand trimming.

1st tee grandstand.

Fairway mowers on their way out.

Perfect turf.

And further in the world of golf I thought it was ironic that Golf Australia magazine had an article this month discussing the issue of the distance the ball now flies.  Turn the page and there's an article from Justin Thomas on how to increase your distance!!??