250mm of rain over the past ten days following the West greens renovation and about the only things enjoying it are the seagulls and ducks.  At least we got the renovation done before the really serious rain came in as it would have been a complete disaster.  The rain however has helped settle the West greens down and we were able to get a couple of dry cuts in this week which was good.  They are approaching their normal mowing height and will probably get another sanding to help finish levelling the surface off.

Someones enjoying the courses.

The one thing the rain and heat have done is get the grass growing.  It is nearly out of control in some places, especially the Kikuyu rough areas, and it hasn't been helped by not being able to get the growth regulator out due to the constant rain.  When we mow tees at this time of year and the tees are under growth regulator we would normally empty the grass catchers twice at the most.  Today we emptied eleven times and the tees have been mown four times already this week and that volume is simply due to no growth regulator.

The other annoying thing after the rain is the wind.  It is a very messy time of year with a number of Eucalypts shedding their bark and the wind strong enough to strip leaves off them as well.  A couple of greens have to have the leaves blown off literally while we are mowing.  The greens mowers are finely tuned machines to mow a very slender blade of grass not leaves.

5W green prior to mowing.

The bunkers also suffer in the wind as they are very proficient leaf collectors.  We can't rake them when they are full of leaves so they need to be blown out and now that they are back in play they need to be raked by players.  The old adage of ''leaving the bunker as you would like to find it'' is just so true.  A lot of other clubs are finding it difficult to get their players to use the rake again after playing a shot.  The photo below is of 9W greenside bunker today within two hours of it being raked by staff.

They moved the rake to play their shot!!

And a new addition to the fleet with two new tractors delivered this week.  The two Kubota's replace two ageing Massey Ferguson tractors and will be a welcome addition as the Massey's were terrible to drive and had become quite unsafe.

In with the new.