A bit of a shock to the system last Sunday with the temperatures plummeting in the morning down to 15 degrees at 5.30am accompanied by a very cold breeze.  A quick check of last years records show that on the corresponding day it was only 10 degrees!!  A much nicer and warmer finish to the week but some pesky showers floating about but at least they were overnight in general.

We took advantage of todays good weather to get what will probably be the final sanding on to the West greens for this growing season.  This helps dilute the thatch layer somewhat and levels up the putting surface.  As usual the sand also contains some humate and gypsum which will only help the greens as well.

Sanding 16W green.

The root pruner still hasn't made it out on to the courses yet with staff numbers a little low at the moment.  It is normal for at least 2 of the crew to be on annual leave at this time of year and that is the case at present.  What I didn't count on was one of the crew members tearing his achilles playing tennis last week end and one of the other boys first born child arriving 6 weeks early on Mothers Day.  So that makes us four down and the casuals have all been finished up and gone elsewhere.  It was a fairly empty lunch room on Thursday with the two apprentices at trade school meaning there was only eight bodies in there!!

And a little bit of trivia to finish off with the USPGA championship about to start.  The last time the PGA was held in May was in 1949 and the winner was Sam Snead who also won the Masters in the April of that year!!  Tiger?  Unfortunately it has been very wet at Bethpage this week and the 100 volunteers assisting had to be sent home on both Monday and Tuesday afternoons.  It is apparently drying out so hopefully there will be some good golf played.