After a successful St David's meeting , Easter meeting is rapidly approaching and the golf course is already in top condition with just a final bit of divotting and cutting to finish and lets hope the weather will be better than what is currently forecast.
Since the St David's meeting the Links team have been busy finishing off the winter work and sneaking in a few unplanned projects that became possible with less growth than anticipated and the opportunity and time to carry out these extra projects.
We are still hanging onto this colder weather and with no real change in the next couple of weeks at least it could be a long golf course during Easter, growth wise we are currently about 4 weeks behind compared to last year in growth.
We have been busy overseeding all of the walkways and other weak areas,the seeed we are using germinates at slightly lower temperatures and we are already seeing some germination. Just a note that many of these walkways will be roped off even during Easter competitions to protect our investment in overseeding these areas, we will try and minimise any disruption to playing lines.
Please be patient with our protection of these areas as this will benefit the golf course massively in the long run.
The decision was made to reshape the 7th fairway bunker, this had become very very small and bordering on unplayable,now as you can see it's visually much better and it's playability is much better.
Part of the winter work was to remove the scrub area below the 16th ladies tee and reduce to bare sand and plant with marram, this is a massive improvement and this also enabled us to widen the access to the ladies tee to allow us to get machinery up there safer and also the tee was made bigger and rustic sleeper styling to the tee surrounds, happy ladies!
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It was long felt that the shell path on the 5th carry ruined the natural look of the hole with it's new sandy waste area and newly shaped bunkers,it was therefore decided to remove the shell and this path has been constructed slightly differently in that it has been seeded and rubber matting placed on top, it should very quickly have full grass cover and will blend in beautifully to the landscape. The old rotten sleepers were also removed and new ones inserted with a more rustic natural feel.
Following a bit of a light bulb moment as i was driving past this bank one day thinking 'wow that would be a great bank to build a bunker into' it was passed by committee and gained approval by NRW to close the very first bunker on this line of play and open a bunker in this bank,this bunker is around 100 yards further up than the old first bunker and now fits in perfectly with today's modern technology and is in a much better position in relation to the two left hand bunkers and very importantly is far better visually.
Some more aeration work,sand dressings and rolling has been carried out on the greens after St David's meeting and we will be doing the same again after Easter meeting .
We have been able to continue with hand mowing which has placed far less stress on the greens and especially the green perimeters and morning's like this have been a joy to work in.
Hope you all enjoy the Easter meeting,I'm certainly looking forward to getting out on the course to play after a busy few months.
The Links team have been extremely busy this winter having made many key changes to the golf course alongside the committee and management and i hope that you like the changes, we believe that we will see a big difference in the overall condition of golf course this year and our aim is always to produce the very best that we can on a daily basis.
Please look after your golf course by replacing divots, repairing pitchmarks and raking bunkers. Thankyou.
Rhys Butler, Links Manager, Royal St David's Golf Club.
