Old and washed out

Hi All,

I know the title of the blog isn't an attractive one and it could some up how I feel following the never ending winter but is not.
The old bit comes from a visit we have had from an Ecologist for BIGGA (British and International Golf Greenkeepers Association) James Hutchinson who was the Ecologist for the R and A. James is a bit of tree geek (sorry James) and was looking and prasing our woodland management. One tree in particular court his eye and that was the oak between the 3rd and the 1st by the 3rd green. He asked us to measure the base at approximately 1 metre high to age the tree. This came back at around 866cm meaning the Oak Tree was over 800 YEARS OLD! Making it one of the oldest Oaks you will find and dating back to when the site was a deer park.
James was also impressed with our natural wildflowers including Bluebells, Primrose and Wood Anenome in our woodlands along with the Deers, Buzzards and Owls.

Old Oak tree

Wood Anenome and Bluebells

Deer

The washed out bit comes from all the rain we have had lately with an eye watering 10 inches of rainfall since March 1st. 10% of it fell on 21st April in about an hour and caused us many hours of labour. You can see some of the pictures in our video blog. Link at the bottom.

149mm in March followed by 119mm in April

A better looking forecast now but we are still 20 days behind 1st May 2107

 We have managed to get all the Tees, Aprons and Surrounds Hollow cored ahead of the season and have applied fertilisers to all areas to help repair winter damage and get us going for the season.

Fertilisers added to the course 

Here is the link to our latest video blog :- https://youtu.be/QL1YfbuZIgk

This will explain a little bit more about whats been going on.

Lastly I would like to thank the team for the hard work the winters are part of the job but this winter has been particularly challenging especially with the high level of down pours meaning reinstating of bunkers, paths and pushing water off greens has been a daily task. It would be easy for them to get disheartened and fall behind with our schedule but the haven’t given up and on while we haven’t come out the winter in bad condition. Thank you guys! 

The forecast now is for better weather, even if is short lived again. To me its like an old car trying to start in the mornings... a couple of miss fires and few revs before we get going. Whatever happens, we are still getting closer to the summer months, which means more golfing.

Happy Golfing 

Matt