Some more ordinary weather early in the week with golf affected once again.  Monday in particular was a dirty day with squally showers and a strong southerly blowing all day.  There were no carts on either course and the comp on the River course only had forty odd players.  There was a schools challenge event on the West course with a range of abilities but one of the young guns shot 70 off the blue tees in the abysmal weather which is an extraordinary score.  The weather picked up for the end of the week and Anzac Day was a ripper and Friday not too bad.  Fortunately the 50mm of rain that Byron Bay received today stayed just out to sea as it moved north and all but missed us which was good given there were more than 500 players registered to play today!!

The irrigation installation continued with 4R fairway nearly completed.  It's a deceptively large fairway and the short week cost the contractors some time but all in all a good progressive week.  The past eight weeks have flown by (in someways) and you would hardly know anything had happened on 9W apart from the scars from the mainline installation down the LHS of the hole.  Recovery will obviously slow with the onset of the cooler weather but the cooler weather assists with the necessary shutdown of holes.  For example due to the old / new pipe routing neither 4 or 5R greens are ''live'' this weekend which isn't an issue with no heat stress present.

A great week on the courses and I have to say they are looking a treat as we head towards winter.  Two mornings this week under 20 degrees in the shed compound @ 5am with this morning down to 17 so the slide is on although the days are perfect at this time of year.

Mondays ''Masters shotgun'' gave us the opportunity to do a pretty much full prep for the comp with a 10am shotgun.  The whole course was blown, mown and raked and looked great for the start.  Nice to hear pro Jared say the course was ''superb'' which it was.  Another shotgun start today on the River course with limited play prior offered  the same opportunity and again the course looked great although given it was a brewery promotional day they may not remember.  Disappointing when you drive around the course just before hit off and see this on 16R after only about thirty players had gone through in the morning.

Don't know how you could leave that?

 

The irrigation system installation continues and 5W was completed this week so we now have five holes successfully completed.  Last weeks ''first run'' went off nearly perfectly.  I say nearly as I was sitting waiting to watch the first spray come on and somehow the time on my phone was a minute faster than the computer so the launch was a minute later than I was expecting.  One of the longest minutes as I pondered what I had done wrong!! 

I mentioned earlier that one of the features of the new system is the ability to water greens and green surrounds separately.  This is going to become a real water saver as the runtime for each spray on the greens will be less than half of what we used previously based on this weeks trials.  The completed holes 5 - 8W have some of the heaviest green surrounds that hold moisture for a long time so it was perfect timing for them to not be overwatered this week following last weeks deluges.

We move on to 4R next week which will be followed by 5R then back across to 4 and 10W.

And the end of an era with halfway West being removed.  Once the front awning was removed it really showed just how dilapidated it was.

Seen better days.

 

New concrete to be poured next Friday.

A very frustrating week for golfers and greenkeepers alike with some really annoying weather patterns happening recently.  Probably the worst one was when we got 30mm of rain in a dumping on Sunday night that virtually no one nearby received, particularly Kingscliff where a mere 3mm fell.  We are now just shy of a metre of rain YTD which is less than up on the Sunshine Coast but still frustrating.  It has really affected our programs across the board from spraying to mowing and raking.  The fertiliser we got out across the property the other week has certainly kicked in though we were too wet to mow most fairways and the growth has been prolific to say the least.  At least that's a good problem to have as we head towards winter.  1 and 9R fairways have stayed very wet and the recent high tides haven't helped that.

An all too familiar look on 1R fairway lately.  Only good for ducks.

The irrigation installation continues and despite some lost days due to the weather they are still proceeding well.  6W was completed yesterday and the mainline down the LHS of 5W was installed today.  6W is probably one of the boggiest holes we have so it was unfortunate that they were down there during such a wet spell.  They can't really pick and choose where they go as the work needs to be done in sequence to allow the pipe installation to be as uniform as possible.

It was all action @ 6W this week.

So four holes are now completed and tonight (well tomorrow morning) will see the new system being operated automatically for the first time.  And yes I will be coming in at 3am to watch!!

I sent the chart below around this morning and indeed it is a tale of woe.  For a Club that is so reliant on golf cart traffic that is a lot of cart restriction and less than usual player numbers which has a dramatic impact on income obviously.  We have had worse runs than March 16 - 30 in terms of consecutive days of rainfall but that's up there with the best of them.  We will probably nudge past a metre of rain YTD by Sunday night by the look of the forecast.  I have no doubt said it before but this is as wet as the courses can get.  It's not ideal when you are trying to get some growth happening going into winter as that much rain means lots of cloud cover and all the turf needs at the moment is bright sunny conditions.

 

A tale of woe!!

The rain isn't much good for the irrigation installation either with their machinery making lots of mess and having an impact on their ability to work.  We are now up to four lost days due to weather although they are still on track as far as the program is concerned.  There is still some work that they can do in the rain such as lifting low sprinklers and assembling fittings but that doesn't run to four days.  7W did get finished this week and we are off to 6W on Monday with hopefully some fine weather.

Not where the installation equipment should be on a Friday.

 

Installation of the new half way West starts next Monday and is due to run for two weeks.  The entire area will be fenced off and Members are asked not to enter the construction zone.  Two portable toilets will be available for players use.  There will also be some concrete path installation happening at 1W tee so buggy path diversions will be in place there as well.  As with the irrigation installation please follow the signage that will be in place and we apologise for the inconvenience but the finished product is what we are after. 

And spare a thought for Bonville GC as they host the Australian Womens Classic this week.  It has been held at Bonville on five occasions and I don't think they have ever had a dry one with this years event already shortened to a 36 hole event after play was abandoned this morning.