November?!

Yes amazingly the mild weather is still here and I heard most were in short sleeved t-shirts playing golf on Sunday in what was a glorious day,followed by a horrid day of rain for most of the day on Monday when we got a bit wet working would be an understatement!It was however a glorious day today with lots of golfers out in force enjoying the fine conditions and with a dry forecast now for a while which is most welcome for all.
The links is currently playing fantastic with the greens nice and firm and many comments of how quick they are!
We are seeing great results after the overseeding with the fescue seedlings germinating perfectly.An organic seaweed and a little potash was applied last week to aid this germination.

Last week saw the completion of the remodelling of the 17th hole.It was a tremendous effort by all the team in where we had rain preety much every single day whilst working on the project.It was a big area and a big project to undertake,(around 900 sq m ) to strip the turf, store the turf to be relaid,remove all the excess soil and shape and recontour the area,returf and complete the bunker renovations.

As you can see from these three pictures the hole itself for the average golfer was almost impossible with no possibility of making the green with the very penal cross bunker and was unfair and even for the better golfer with the severe contouring off the bank of the bunkers with any ball pitching on the downslopes facing a fierce kick to the back of the green or even beyond into the thick rough.

 The very penal cross bunker.

The recontoured and re modelled area before turfing.

Hey Presto! The lines on the picture below now show the gap which has also been contoured to slingshot any running balls to gather towards and even onto the green making the hole much more playable and fairer for all. The banks that were on the back of the old cross bunker were also lowered and re contoured resulting in a fairer result for any ball pitching in this area.
You may also notice the new bunker which is of more of a naturalised style. With the front sand face and sides compacted the ball will return to the centre of the bunker resulting in much fairer bunker playability.You will certainly see the bunker from the fairway as the main thought is that they are much more visually appealing.

This picture above is what we have moved onto in our next piece of winter work, this is the removal of the astroturf path and renovation of the worn traffic areas surrounding the path. This path will be turfed and matted from the 3 rd green to most of the way to the 4th tee.

There are many other little subtle changes happening around the course from signage to tee markers,let's see who has a keen eye to spot these and please give us your opinion. Please also feel free to ask any questions,the blog has had 1,090 views so somebody must have a question.

Get golfing whilst the weather's good!

Regards,

Royal St David's Links Team.