What a fabulous few weeks of links golf we have been treated to with baking hot weather for a prolonged period now providing a great authentic links experience.
The Open as usual had lots of drama to keep us all on the edge of our seats and the golf course looked great,probably a touch greener than everyone wanted but its very difficult to beat mother natures untimely rainfall.
I went to watch the practice day on Tuesday and it was great to see the top players on the world trying to figure out and plot out their way around the links which was presented so magnificently by Craig Gilholm and his team.
The Links Team at Royal St David's have also been extremely busy with Open week a great success, the firm and fiery conditions proved a great test all week and the whole course looked superb, a testimony to the hard work of the Links Team.
A picture of the Links Team working during set up for the competition during Open week.
The club also hosted the Welsh professional championship at the start of July with a host of top players playing including past Ryder Cup Players and several European Tour players.
Some rain had softened the course a little for the players as the aim is always to set the golf course up firm and fast for all championships as links golf should be.
It was a thrilling finish with former European Tour Winner Stephen Dodd edging out a good friend of mine Garry Houston in a play off.
It was great to hear such positive comments from a lot of the players on the changes and the course as a whole.
The course presentation has been of a consistently high level all year and we are always looking to improve all aspects of the golf course including , bunkers, pathways, greens,tees,fairways and approaches ,making the roughs playable whilst retaining the championship element of the golf course.
We are currently working on improving the grassed walkways and I'm tremendously exited with the presentation improvement and definition in these areas, pictures to follow soon!
Below are a few pictures of the high quality presentation improvements that we are looking to maintain all the time.
The 5th fairway towards the green
Looking back down the 5th fairway
Looking back down the 10th fairway towards the tee
In between all the tournaments the Links Team have been very busy applying wetting agents to tees,greens, approaches and fairways which balances air to water ratios in the soil as well as treating the effects of dry patch and increases turf resilience and stress tolerance which i believe we have already seen a major difference in the quality of the sward on some of the weaker fairways which would be struggling after the long hot spell we have had. May there please be more of it!
We have been busy continuing with the aeration programme which is already seeing big improvements in the rooting of the finer grasses with last week's 8mm solid tining of the greens and top dressed after to diluting any thatch levels whilst also promoting dry,firm and smooth putting surfaces.
We are very happy with the programme so far this year ,we are nicely up to date with all maintenance practises and my thanks goes to all the team for their hard work and passion and enthusiasm to provide the very best links experience on a daily basis to all golfers.
Hope to see you on the links soon,
Rhys Butler,
Links Manager, Royal St David's Golf Club.
