Just a brief update on the Links and as you can imagine with so many competitions we have had the past couple of months with Open week, The Gold Cross Welsh Order of Merit event and the Ladies and Mens week it's been a busy period for the team in setting up and presenting the golf course to the very highest standards possible on a daily basis.
The summer blog's aren't quite as interesting as the winter work where more construction and changes for the upcoming season will take place,we are very much more into refining the playing surfaces through the summer months with some topdressing,brushing and rolling which ensures smooth putting surfaces at the height of the season.
There is still a massive amount of work to do through the summer with fairways,semi roughs, bunkers,tees, approaches etc to manage and keep healthy it's a great effort by the team to keep producing the high standards that we all expect.
The 18th green looking very healthy and the sandy areas at the rear of the green have settled beautifully and have proved to be a real visual plus for the hole.
The much improved walkway on the 4th and the new sandy area at the rear of the green giving a great linksy feel to the hole.
The 6th fairway with Snowdon in the background looking very healthy.
Much work has been done already this year on overseeding and this autumn will see a lot more work again going into overseeding of tees,fairways,approaches,walkways etc.
Personally i am thrilled with the progress we have made in many key areas this year especially the greens and walkways, the greens have certainly improved a lot with much more fescue becoming dominant in the sward and with the combination of more sand dressings and rolling we have certainly seen an increase in the smoothness,firmness and trueness of the putting surfaces and I really do believe they will only get better with more overseeding, topdressing etc.
Many of the walkways are now much improved with much more grass coverage on these areas, again this autumn many of these will have a lot of overseeding, vertidraining etc to improve them even further.
It's been a very good summer in terms of the improvement in the golf course,the weather hasn't exactly been great but its been very good to hear the positive comments about the golf course and further overseeding, aeration, topdressing etc will only improve the golf course even further.
Further works also on managing and thinning the roughs will happen this winter and will result in a fairer golf course,the rough in the summer when it gets thick after all this rain is certainly very tough, myself and the committee are very aware of this and will be looking for improvement in these areas.
There are also lots of exciting plans in this years winter work programme which is to be finalised soon then there will be a lot of pictures!
Please come out again soon sun!
Regards
Rhys Butler, Links Manager, Royal St David's Golf Club.
