It's hard to believe that six years ago today I was writing about the end of week one of the conversion of the back nine greens on the West course to TifEagle and in particular 13W, which was ready for planting that day.  The way the weather was then is so far different to this year it's almost scary.  We were having much warmer consistent temperatures at the time rather than what we are experiencing this year, with the variable weather conditions continuing this week.  So much so that I doubt I would want to plant any greens just now.  Looking back it was amazing that throughout the two year project we were only affected by heavy rain once and it did no major damage.  I couldn't imagine trying the same project over the past two summers as the type and volume of rain we have been getting would destroy new greens construction works. 

13W green starts October 2016.

In 2017 we started the front nine greens and this was my opening comment on the blog on October 6, 2017:

Well it was only 45mm of rain that fell but it is some of the most welcome rain I have seen here.  A nice soaking rain that was just what we needed with very little run off.  For the first time since I have been here I recorded a zero rainfall month during September.  Indeed since July 20 we had received just 4.6mm of rain until last Sunday!!

How things have changed??!!

Access road @ rear 1W green October 2017.

Back to the present and a short week on the courses but plenty happening including some vandalism on Monday night when we lost nine flagsticks, a couple of signs and multiple tee markers.  No real turf damage which was fortunate and it looked like they were on foot as a couple of the flagsticks finished up in Tweed City.  Not really what we wanted after a fairly wild long weekend of weather had tree debris strewn all over the courses and the vandalism just added to the to-do list as we started to put the place back together.  In amongst all the other course works this week there were twelve repairs effected on the irrigation system.  Despite the rainfall we still need an operational system and it is literally hanging by a thread. 

Very sad to hear of the passing of Phil Dark last week.  Phil came to the club in 2000 after some of the most tumultuous times in the club's history and together with determined Presidents and Boards put the club on an exceptionally stable footing, which pretty much remains today.  Things were pretty lean back in the day following the disastrous decision to tender out mowing of the courses to the ''worm farmers'' as they were known and there had been some major upheaval in the clubhouse as well in the late nineties.  Phil was a hard but fair taskmaster and kept an incredibly tight grip on finances and the general management of the club but at the same time backed his managers to the hilt.  Vale Phil.

And a very happy lunchroom on Friday morning after a successful tip at the Mornington horse races on Thursday afternoon.  One of my nephews is a professional punter and he text me a tip for Thursday afternoon with the advice ''will open at around $20 and will come in a bit to probably $15 so a good each way bet''.  Well he got that part wrong as it drifted and depending on what State you backed it in paid anywhere between $27 and $30!!   I told the boys as they were about to leave and suggested that my nephew had only ever given me a handful of tips over his thirty year career as a successful punter, and that the few that I had got had never missed so they were all on it for a great result.