COURSE NEWS 21st DECEMBER
Thank you Alan
This week we’ve had 20.5 mm of rain, Monday to Friday. Wednesday was a washout - not a single person on the course all day. We used to say the course closed itself so we didn’t need to, but we couldn’t rely on that - there are always the intrepids! Despite the rain the course has recovered sufficiently to allow pull trolleys: we can hope that power trolleys will be back for Christmas week.
Speaking of which, the course team will go on to Christmas staffing from Christmas Eve. We will be down to 1 man coming in daily to set the course up - minimally. No-one will be in on any of the bank Holidays: the team will restart normal hours on January 2nd. PLEASE NOTE: there will be NO STAFF around the club on Bank Holidays - we strongly discourage lone golf. In the event of an accident you could be out there for a long time!
The greens were cut on Friday - there was little coming off even after a week - and have been sprayed with ‘Dewclear’, which discourages dew forming on the grass. Leaving water beads on the leaves encourages disease; spraying avoids the need for manual intervention, for up to 10 days.
Gavin has finished the drainage work on 13, including installing an inspection chamber. It was a wet and mucky job. The earthworks now need to settle before being levelled off and returfed early next year. He plans to create a level area in front of the bays by stripping the turf and some underlying soil then levelling with root zone. It will be turfed as soon as possible next year - then be out of play until April.
This will probably be the final Course Update for 2025 and will also be my final offering, as I finally step back from the Course Committee and other course matters by the year-end. Change is inevitable, and probably overdue - the older one gets the more resistant one becomes to change.
We can’t track back to when the Updates started - Mary Thorp was responsible for the original idea. They were certainly in full swing by June 2010, by which time I’d already been involved with the Course for at least 5 years, along with several other enthusiasts including Peter Longson, Keith Birmingham, and Ian Graves. Rupert Thorp was invaluable for his hydrogeology and wildlife expertise. There were others, but they were the core group.
Alan Wood
Speaking of which, the course team will go on to Christmas staffing from Christmas Eve. We will be down to 1 man coming in daily to set the course up - minimally. No-one will be in on any of the bank Holidays: the team will restart normal hours on January 2nd. PLEASE NOTE: there will be NO STAFF around the club on Bank Holidays - we strongly discourage lone golf. In the event of an accident you could be out there for a long time!
The greens were cut on Friday - there was little coming off even after a week - and have been sprayed with ‘Dewclear’, which discourages dew forming on the grass. Leaving water beads on the leaves encourages disease; spraying avoids the need for manual intervention, for up to 10 days.
Gavin has finished the drainage work on 13, including installing an inspection chamber. It was a wet and mucky job. The earthworks now need to settle before being levelled off and returfed early next year. He plans to create a level area in front of the bays by stripping the turf and some underlying soil then levelling with root zone. It will be turfed as soon as possible next year - then be out of play until April.
This will probably be the final Course Update for 2025 and will also be my final offering, as I finally step back from the Course Committee and other course matters by the year-end. Change is inevitable, and probably overdue - the older one gets the more resistant one becomes to change.
We can’t track back to when the Updates started - Mary Thorp was responsible for the original idea. They were certainly in full swing by June 2010, by which time I’d already been involved with the Course for at least 5 years, along with several other enthusiasts including Peter Longson, Keith Birmingham, and Ian Graves. Rupert Thorp was invaluable for his hydrogeology and wildlife expertise. There were others, but they were the core group.
Alan Wood