Friday 15 September 2017

September update


Recently, the weather has been a bit naff. So wet in fact that the autumn renovations have stretched over 3 weeks (when all finished). Really, when working as a team of 2, you need everything to work in your favour to get the work done in a week. We were grateful for the help of Dave Asprey, Colin Riley and John Newns for their assistance. Great work guys!

The trouble we had was that it tipped it down from 4th September and trying to pull cores out of wet greens is a nightmare. They just don't come out. Dragging in wet sand is just as bad too. So the work really has dragged on because everything has been so stop-start.

We must get the work done so that the greens are nice and dry (and firm) as we head into autumn and winter. We aim to finish next week.

One positive to report is that I arranged a demonstration day with Bernhard's. We managed to get the greens mower cylinders re-ground FOC. This saved the golf club about £250-300 which is money that won't be lost out of the budget. Re-grinding is a pricey business (maintaining golf courses is a pricey business but that's the way it is when you're running a business that caters for a luxury hobby such as golf) and to keep greens, tees, approaches and fairways looking in good condition, mower cylinders need to be regularly sharp.



Regards the weather, it has been a terrible summer in all honesty. The monthly rainfall totals are as follows:

• January - 51mm
• February-  79mm
• March - 84mm
• April - 18mm
• May - 46mm
• June - 99mm
• July - 81mm
• August - 75mm
• September - 94mm (so far)

Interesting that the wettest month of the year was June with September close behind. It has been a summer of extremes really and I guess warm & wet will become the norm for our summers from now on!

Many thanks for all volunteers who have assisted this summer with a special nod to Len Dilnutt for getting wet on a rough mower!



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