Easter sunshine!

What a fabulous start to the Easter meeting with glorious weather and great golfing conditions greeting the full field of golfers playing,and set to continue as well.
The Links Team have been very busy recently preparing and getting the golf course in fine shape with lots of presentation work being carried out such as strimming ,flymoing, divoting , cutting faiways, tees approaches and even with a little early season growth some rough as well!

We have been brushing the greens to remove any lateral growth in the greens and this in turn produces a much smoother, truer and faster putting sufaces, the greens are very good with all these attributes as well as good firmness producing excellent playing surfaces.

Due to such mild weather we are in a position to apply the herbicide to kill the daisy's and other weed contamination on the fairways,approaches ,tees etc.This makes a tremendous difference to the visual appearance and playability and taking the presentation of the golf course to the highest level.
As you can imagine the grass does take a bit of a knock back during this herbicide application therefore it is good practice to feed the surfaces first to strengthen up the sward, we have already done this and are now in a position in the coming week to start applying the herbicide.

The improvement to the 12th  tee complex with new steps on both mens and ladies tees greatly improving the area is now complete and has made a great visual impact to the hole.

Before

After

The new walkways which replaced some of the the shell paths with turf and matting is taking very well and the grass is coming through nicely with the paths looking very natural whilst also being very hard wearing with the matting for extra protection.
All of the areas we returfed ,re contoured etc over the winter period the new 17th and the new hollows etc are always being refined and looked after in order for establishment and presentation to be of the highest quality.

We have a lot of key maintenance practices to carry out after the easter meeting with pro core solid tine aeration, this will keep the turf  healthy and give the deep rooting fescues more passages to explore.
There will be very little disruption with the greens rolled immediately to reinstate a smooth surface.
We also will be topdressing the greens soon to help produce a nice smooth putting surface.


Wishing you all all a happy easter and hope you all enjoy your golf.

Rhys Butler,Links Manager, Royal St David's Golf Club.