We’re now a week into being open and what a pleasure it is seeing people back out on the course. There’s a joke amongst greenkeepers that it’d be a great job if it wasn’t for golfers, well I can say for sure that it’s not. My job is to provide the best playing surface possible, and it only becomes this when it’s actually played on. On to playing surfaces. We’re currently alternating daily between cutting and rolling the greens to maintain the height and smooth the surface. They were barely touched over the period we were closed and so with two days notice we didn’t have time to fully prepare them for opening. Hopefully you’ve seen a steady improvement over the last week now that maintenance on them has increased. We’re currently using an old machine to mow them as our machinery fleet is being systematically sent off to have repairs done. Our greens mower and our tees mower are currently being fixed and when they return there will be a further improvement to the greens and regular mowing of the tees can resume. We’ve stopped mowing the fairways at the moment as they are drying out drastically in this weather. With just two of us still working this is saving us some time to get on with other jobs. With no rain in sight we’ll raise the height of cut slightly on the fairway mower and get a cut on them soon to tidy them up without stressing them out too much. You’ll have seen that we’re slowly getting the rough under control, the rough mower was out of action for a while and by the time it was sorted the rough was around six inches long. We got it all cut which then left grass cuttings everywhere which we have continued to keep going over to tidy it up. We’ll continue to keep doing this now on a regular basis to keep it as it should be. My next main aim on the irrigation is to replace the sprinklers on the tees. A lot of the sprinklers either don’t rotate or don’t work at all and with no time to hand water there’s a lot of areas drying out really badly at the moment. Unfortunately my hands are tied at the moment with regards to resources but rest assured that we are aware of the issue and will resolve it as soon as possible. And finally I’d like to thank the people who kindly offered to tidy up the bunkers for us. A few people had already offered and so we put out an invitation for volunteers. We had a great response and the gruelling task has been completed far quicker than I expected. The difference it has made to the presentation of the course is amazing so thank you very much! It demonstrates what a great group of members we have here! Please continue to play in a safe manner and more than anything enjoy the golf that we’re now all able to play! Many thanks Richard Sheldon. | 
