A frustrating week with light annoying showers being enough to disrupt some of our planned maintenance, particularly on Friday morning.  It started raining just as the crew left the compound and a couple of jobs had to be rescheduled.  With the speed that the first groups play at there's no time to waste getting out on the courses.  A single in a cart who played 18 holes in two hours on Friday morning didn't help things.

The courses are still holding up well and although player numbers have eased slightly there is still plenty of traffic.  Greens on both courses got a fertilise this week and are putting well.  We get back to some normality next week with the Tuesday course closure recommencing which provides us with a chance to get a lot of work done, particularly on the greens.  The advantage of (hopefully) working in dry conditions on the greens results in a far superior result and uses less staff.  The West greens will have the de-thatching program re-commenced next week which is critical for the playing surface.  With the course closed and dry conditions it becomes a 3 man job compared to doing it in front of play in the dew when it becomes at least a 6 man job.

Over the past few weeks we have been replenishing sand in many bunkers on both courses and attending to some of the bunker faces.  We are planning to start either re-draining, fixing or installing drainage in some bunkers over the coming months and we will start next Tuesday on the front bunker on 11W.  The course closure is the only time we can do this type of work on greenside bunkers without closing the hole to ensure safety of staff and contractors.

With the volume of play we have been getting there is always going to be some unwanted damage.  But we seem to have someone who delights in taking big divots and hitting multiple shots and offering no attempt to repair the damage.  It makes you hope that they land in one of their own divots next time they are out.

10 totally untouched divots 2W fairway.