Despite the extremely warm weather last week, the team successfully completed our planned maintenance programme on the Old Course.
The greens, tees, approaches and high-traffic areas around the greens, including areas covered by irrigation, were all aerated, top-dressed and seeded.
We are delighted with how well the greens have recovered so far, as you can see from pictures above. Until full recovery has been achieved, we will continue to irrigate the Old Course greens most nights and maintain them at a slightly higher height of cut. This will help encourage further recovery, although it does mean the greens will be slightly slower than normal during this period.
We are hopeful, along with all other golf courses, that the current weather pattern will soon change and that we will finally receive some much needed rainfall. The drought conditions and extremely high temperatures experienced this summer have been unprecedented and our focus is now turning towards helping the courses recover and ensuring they are in the best possible condition for the winter and next year’s golfing season.
We have placed a significant order for grass seed and are planning to overseed all fairways on both courses. This work will most likely take place in early October,when we expect the ground to have softened sufficiently for the seeder to penetrate the soil effectively.
We will also need to undertake some form of fairway aeration to help relieve the compaction caused by weeks of relentless sunshine and a prolonged lack of rainfall.
We currently have wetting agents in stock which will be applied when significant rainfall is forecast. These products work by reducing the surface tension of the water, helping it move through the soil profile and minimising surface run-off.
As conditions change and we finalise our plans for the coming months, we will continue to keep members updated.
Thank you for your understanding while we work to bring the courses through what has been an exceptionally challenging summer.