Well week one of club champs and the Pro am week are now done and dusted and club director Scott Mayo's par round last Saturday may well be as good a round as I have heard of at Cool Tweed given the wind conditions.  That certainly was a tough day at the office once the wind got up.  Another course closure after the vets on Thursday afternoon gave us the chance to get a lot of prep work done for the Pro am.  We cut and rolled the greens in front of play and only just made it as the photo shows below with all hands on deck to get the last green prepared for play with players already at 5R tee in the background.

Players already on 5R tee but we made it.

With the weather conditions we are having we are nearly in full irrigation mode although as mentioned last week the shaded areas are still soft and wet.  The turf still isn't really actively growing just yet as soil temperatures stay low.  I mention shade fairly regularly and it just isn't possible to have quality turf with the amount of shade we have.  The photo below shows 4R green with the shade persisting in the back RHS corner.  Next time you play the hole have a look at how weak the turf is in this area.  The other photo is of 18W tee where there is some blue couch down the front of the tee.  This area of the tee is heavily shaded and often stays wet with the dew on windless days.  Those round circles in the photo are disease patches which thrive in those conditions.

Rear 4R green shade.

Front 18W tee disease.

Some of the root pruned areas are looking very successful so that will be continuing next week.