Mother Nature did her best to wreck our plans this week with the rain coming earlier than forecast on Tuesday. The rain was predicted to arrive around 3pm on Tuesday afternoon which would’ve been ideal, but instead the heavens opened at 5am with the course receiving 22mm in 2 hours. The blue tarps that we had in place over the weekend did save the team and a few hearty volunteers, a lot of repair work, with the areas outside of the tarps being damaged and eroded by the heavy rainfall.

The course team, with the help of the volunteers, were able to repair the damage and still lay all the turf during a very busy morning. The rolls have been pinned down to ensure they stay in place while the turf establishes and sends its roots down. The 9^th hole will remain out of play for the weekend and return to play on Monday. However, the 19^th hole will still be in play next week as we will be taking the 7^th hole out while the contractor works on the new sandstone retaining wall which will replace the timber logs and reconstructing the tee pads into one large pad at the height of the existing front tee pad.

All greens have been mini hollow cored this week to remove built up mat and thatch from surfaces. This will improve infiltration rates of these playing surfaces and benefit disease management in the greens. Greens remain healthy and resilient despite the constant high humidity weather conditions we have been experiencing since early November.

All tee complexes were sprayed with growth regulator this week to keep these surfaces to the expected presentation standards. A few of our older bunkers were GUR on Wednesday and Thursday because they were either holding water from the rain on Tuesday or needed silt removed from them. The silt removal will be performed on Friday and all bunkers should be back in play for the weekend.

Our volunteers switched days this week so that they were fresh for turf laying on Tuesday morning. And fresh they had to be, as it was a difficult assignment laying the turf down the slope of the 9^th green surrounds, and around the edge of the pond. We only had one slip but due to some great acrobatic and self-taught commando rolling skills, Draino was able to save himself from falling into the water! What a great bunch of blokes our volunteers are, and I appreciate their assistance every week.

We will be cutting greens both mornings this weekend.

Have a great weekend and happy golfing!

The Course Team.