Big week ahead!

Hi all,Well its a bit of a change since the last post of unusually warm weather with the temperature dipping and cold northerly winds upon us,however the winds are switching back to the south giving us a slightly warmer front for a bit.Lets hope the long range forecast of one of the harshest winters in decades from November onwards is wrong!

The links team are cerainly hoping for a warm spell to stay so that after the Welsh Professional Championship should enable us to overseed whilst we still have warm soil temperatures for good germination of our fine fescues.The warm soils will also aid the turfing which already a lot has been carried out all over the links of repairing and turfing rabbit holes and heavily worn traffic areas to root strongly and be strong going into the winter.

• Visit of Alistair Beggs STRI consultant agronomist.

Last week saw the visit of Alistair Beggs from STRI to give his expert view over the links.Alistair is the head of Agronomy at STRI and is a world renowned agronomist and also looks after all The Open Championship venues.

• He once again was impressed with the putting surfaces especially, and congratulated Roger ,John and the team in what was Roger's final meeting with Alistair before retiring in what they have achieved in the last 35 years in converting 95% meadow grass greens to 95% fescue bent greens,an astonishing achievement, which no doubt caused a lot of sleepless nights for them but resluting in sustainable fine grass greens that the club can be exeptionally proud of,some of the very best in the country!



• The returfing work that has been carried out extensively on the links,please look after these areas!If you need to move the traffic management measures during play then please replace and keep trolleys off these areas then these areas will be strong and ready for next seasons play and looking great.
  

•  The walk off area from the 2nd green to 3rd tee is progressing well with the before and after pictures here showing the progress we have made to be almost ready for the area to be turfed.The addition of the path to the back tee and widening of the walkway to tee and fairway will result in less damage and better condition of the winter tee and a general tidying of the area using natural linksy materials to give a classic linksy feel.





As i mentioned before the Welsh Professional championship is being held this week on the classic links and we are currently prepping and fine tuning the playing surfaces,let's hope the weather plays ball for the players.There are many top players competing including the likes of Europen Tour player Garry Houston,Ryder Cup hero in 2002 Phillip Price,who can forget his incredible singles victory over Phil Mickelson to capture the Ryder Cup for team Europe and many more.

Forthcoming course maintenance.

After the Welsh Professional Champiuonship,the Winter work programme will commence with the main work that has been delayed for the tournament resuming,this will consist mainly of

• Vertidraining of greens /approaches etc
• Changes to the 17th hole
• Overseeding of greens/approaches
• Topdressing
• Iron/Seaweed on playing surfaces
• Continuation of patching/returfing
• Returfing/matting of walkways.
• Scrub/tree management

Hope to see you on the links soon,P.s Please remember to repair your pitchmarks,replace your divots and take care with the newly laid turf and look after our fantastic links,

Regards

Royal St David Links Team.