October rainfall was 100 mm following September's total of 162 mm. Recently it's been quite dry, although we actually had 13 mm of rain overnight Sunday. We are in a run of dry but humid weather, warm for the season. These conditions are ideal for fusarium fungal disease, and we will be spraying this week to knock it back.

This past week has seen all the greens vertidrained to 11” - down to the stone carpet drainage. Members won’t necessarily know that the contours on our greens are shaped into the underlying clay and repeated into the drainage layer and again through the root zone. We need to ensure that the underlying growing medium is consistent across the green - any significant difference in the underlying layers will impact on the nature of the overlying sward. Vertidraining is essential, but it rather disrupts the putting surface until it settles down. Gavin rolled the greens so he could cut them. We’ve finished this autumn’s tee levelling work, although there remains some infilling by hand round the edges.

At last week’s course committee meeting it was agreed to ship out some of our spoil via a local farmer who is offering a very good price (less than £4 per tonne). Places around the course where we can tip are more or less full, which gets in the way of routine work.

Mats will be positioned on the short hole tees. An announcement encouraging members to use individual mats in the general area will be made: since the shortened course does not meet the measured qualifying length (due to the tee closures) we can’t play qualifiers throughout the winter. There is therefore no issue about whether or not they can be used in general play.

Course Committee
3 November2024