Happy New Year to all readers of this Blog as I start informing Members and followers for the 15th year of what's happening on the courses at Cool Tweed. I don't know of another course anywhere in the world that have had this amount of information made available to members for so long. The Blog now receives an average of 1,500 ''hits'' a week so it has certainly grown over the years!! Listed below is where some of the past weeks audience numbers have come from, with Australia obviously the most popular viewers.
2024 closed out with 2,785mm making it the fourth wettest year since records began in 1886. Let's hope we get a break as the four of the past four years have seen more than 2.4metres of rain each year. We have certainly had a good break over the past two weeks and haven't the golfers come out to play, especially over the past week since Christmas, with well in excess of 500 players a day. It's not just the numbers that affect our productivity and quality but the speed of the first group. New Years eve saw the first group in the members comp around in 2.45 hours which doesn't give us much time to get anything done of any real consequence. It is just a matter of hanging on and hoping we get through to next week when the numbers return somewhat to normal but still very busy.
The chance to host the the WPGA Tour School earlier this week gave us the chance to really showcase the West course with tee times not starting until 7.30am on day one which gives us a two hour break on the play and the quality of course presentaon was spot on. The crew really stepped up to the mark and produced the goods.
The courses have certainly dried out and we are now in full irrigation mode with many old drain and irrigation trenches starting to show like the one on 18R below. The new irrigation system is certainly handling the dry well with a very even cover of water across the playing areas installed so far and already a much reduced volume of water being used. It is still not as good as it will be when finished as the success of the system is reliant on all the new pipe being installed to allow for an even flow of water to all parts of the courses which isn't there just yet. But what we are experiencing now is very encouraging going forward.
You know it's dry when this happens.
Another drainline showing is one of the ''aggie'' pipes near the fairway bunker on 18W shown below. Several of these are showing in this area and given how wet the area gets they are obviously useless. There are also four collection pits in the area as well so prior to the irrigation being installed on 18W we will be re-shaping this area in the same manner as done on 4R two years ago and moving all surface water to one pit. While we are there the fairway bunker will be reduced in size and re-drained. The area will then be rid of the ''melon holes'' that have formed there over the years when it has been so wet but still subjected to carts traffic while wet.
18W drainline showing.
And while the machinery is onsite the front bunker on 3R will be reduced in size and become a bit more of a pot bunker style to the left of the play line to allow some of our less abled players to access the green. These works will be done next Tuesday and due to the location the hole will be closed for the day.
The irrigation contractors are due back onsite next Monday and will be starting on 18W.
One thing that has certainly happened this season is an absolute explosion in the germination of Crowsfoot across the property. I doubt I have ever seen this much which is down to three things. The weather pattern obviously has a lot to do with it but I believe a huge amount of seed made its way on to the courses in the 2022 flood and subsequent minor flooding we have experienced over the past three years has helped spread it far and wide. The other factor is that we have used less pre-emergent products over the past year due to the irrigation installation and the need for a lot of turfing to be done. We have been spraying quite a few areas successfully over the past weeks and continued today with both boom and hand spot spraying happening.
