Autumn is upon us - and so far, so dry

Autumn is a season I like and dislike in equal measure.

We all love the changing colours of the leaves on the trees but the leaves that fall present us greenkeepers with the unenviable task of collecting them. 

Not only that, for golfers, the task of finding a golf ball in and around endless leaves is not good!

It has not helped that our compact tractor has developed an intermittent electrical fault. It keeps blowing fuses with no clear sign of where the fault lies. So it has been sent away for repair. In the meantime, we are down to a backpack blower to clear leaves. This takes so much longer and impacts quite heavily upon our resources.

However, the upside at present is how dry the golf course is. This is affording us the opportunity to continue with mowing and thus present the course as best as we can. We have continued to do some topdressing. The putting green and 12th tee have been done this week, keeping these surfaces nice and firm.

We hope, should next week remain dry, to give all the greens a light topdressing so that they continue to provide smoother putting later into the season.

Last week, we managed to get our rough mower into the pond between holes 5 and 6. It looks a lot more presentable now and although it is currently marked as GUR, it should give golfers the opportunity to find golf balls and play a recovery shot. We hope, in time, to soften the sharp edges with a mini digger so that this whole area can be mown with one mower. Please bear with us on this.

The greens are recovering well from the verti draining last week and a firming up nicely. We are also walk mowing them at this time of year for better presentation and to give the ride on mower a break after a long summer!

Have a great weekend and enjoy your golf!