Smooth!

We are still having some very strange weather at the moment,blistering sunshine Thursday and having just returned from work this morning setting up the course for the monthly medal in which i encountered very heavy rain, thunder and lightning!

The course is looking great at the moment thanks to all the efforts of the Links Team, the definition is fantastic at the moment with the fairways and semi rough and then the deeper rough beautifully defined.

A picture of the 8th fairway with the 1 st and 2nd cut of rough shown, the course is playing very fair at the moment. We are continually monitoring the roughs to make the course playable for all whilst retaining the championship elements which make the course what it is.

Below you can see the lads are busy divotting as we do every week to keep the course presentation at the highest level.

The greens are nice and firm currently with excellent smoothness and trueness levels. We have good green speed at the moment, this will vary with the more moisture slowing the greens but when the greens do get a nice dry spell they are very quick!

A view back up the 5th fairway

Following the redesign of the 17th hole and a change in design to a few of the bunkers to see how they play through the year and to gain an insight into golfers thoughts and to gain feedback for possibility of expanding this design to the rest of the golf course it was decided to do a trial on the 5th fairway bunker and to see the visual difference especially from the teeing ground.

The old bunker at ground level with no sand visible form the tee.

 The newly reshaped and renovated bunker with

The bunker at ground level

In the picture below it shows the visual difference the higher sand line makes to the tee shot with the sand clearly visible,there are also 5 bunkers down the left hand side which if the sand line was higher would be visible from the tee and would possibly define the shape of the hole a lot more clearly as well as for visitors playing for the first time would be able to differentiate between the mounds and bunkers on the hole.

The team have also been very busy working on the weaker areas with overseeding lots of areas on the golf course such as a few green edge perimeters and heavy wear areas and walkways. Improving the weaker areas and gaining good grass coverage on these areas makes such a difference to the presentation of the golf course.

As i mentioned in the previous blog , this time of year and through the summer is a lot more routine maintenance such as rough cutting, spraying applications of fertiliser,herbicide and wetting agents etc as well as divotting all playing areas and ,green,tee,approach and fairway cutting as well as raking the bunkers and keeping the pathways and all areas of the course in top condition.
We are also keeping up the regular aeration with solid tining monthly, weekly star slitting and regular top dressing applications.

Below is a picture of the importance of regular aeration to the plant, the plant needs air just like we do!

We have also renewed the 150 yard markers and look really good! The new tee markers are also a great improvement and have certainly improved the teeing ground presentation.

The wildlife and plants on the golf course this time of year is simply amazing,from a green winged orchid below to the Skylarks and buzzards which often can be seen in the skies, a wonderful site full of diversity.

We hope to see you out playing on the links soon,and lets pray for a bit of sunny weather to further enhance the golfing experience.

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