Surely this weather pattern has to change soon??  It has just been relentless rain and the courses seem to be getting the brunt of it with not as much falling inland.  Or even at Gold Coast Airport, where they didn't record any rainfall in today's midday deluge that dumped 15mm on us.  We have now had 18mm since 9am this morning and the airport just 2mm.  Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week saw us drying out as per normal compared to last week when we just stayed soaked.  Yesterday and today certainly fixed that up and we are significantly wetter now than this time last week.  How that is possible is beyond me.  It seemed ridiculous to be walking across 4W fairway putting sprinkler location flags out in gumboots but thats what I was doing.

I even got that desperate on Thursday that I decided to put out a product on the West greens that doesn't have to be watered in but it can assist and often when I do that the rain doesn't come.  How wrong I was.  It did give us the opportunity to give our new spray rig a tryout they so that was encouraging and it performed perfectly.

Spray rig in action on 15W.

 

One of the areas that is always difficult to work on is up around the practice green area and short range due to the numbers of golfers up there all day every day.  One of the benefits of a write off Thursday was the opportunity to get the practice nets pressure cleaned and that came up a treat.  We often do maintenance in the nets on rainy days as that's about the only time we can get to them unhindered.

 

Surface looking good.

And speaking of practice we are looking to open both 9R green and the new target green for the June monthly Medal in a couple of weeks.  We do need some dry time to access the drain at the front of the practice green so hopefully that will happen.  There has been some minor wash on the target green but that won't hinder playability.

On the irrigation installation front it has been a dismal week with just some mainline work around 10W tee and 5R green being installed.  Hopefully the fine weather that is predicted next week eventuates and we can get some pipe in the ground.

On Monday next week we will have contractors onsite to fill in the first fairway bunker RHS 6R and the LHS fairway bunker as well.  The works are being completed prior to the irrigation going through the area and the areas won't be re-turfed until after the irrigation is installed in probably three weeks.

I am off for a bit of R&R from mid next week so will be back posting in a couple of weeks.  I'm looking forward to going home tonight to watch some of the USPGA golf.  I visited Valhalla two years after it opened and it was an amazing looking course with massive undulation off the fairways but dead flat fairways themselves which seemed really weird.  It has been rebuilt since then so will be interesting to see it again.  It will be interesting to see what the course maintenance crew of 140 can do with the course for the week.  That's right 140.