Easter chocolate!

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!

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.

Winter work and St David's meeting

We are rapidly approaching the end of the winter work programme and we have made tremendous strides in the conditioning of the golf course, from scrub clearance being transformed to sandy waste areas  to turfing and matting pathways and walkways to some drainage work to reduce surface moisture and of course the continuous improvent in the putting surfaces and other fine turf areas.

The sandy waste area we created last year on the 18th replacing the thick scrub has settled nicely and has added great visual interest to the hole.

The new sandy waste area in front of the 5th tee.

The new 2nd bunker blending into the sandy waste area which replaced the trees and brambles.

The new sandy waste areas behind the 18th green,they might look fierce but they have replaced the very thick almost unplayable rough and you could actually putt out of these areas!

The 18th green looking great,greens are running beautifully and are firm,true and fast!

The new turf and matt pathway on the 18th,a great improvement whilst retaining the natural topography.

A few pictures of the greens below,hand mowing and sand dressings and rolling have improved the greens and they were stimping at 11 last week on 6mm!

We will soon be applying our first application of lawn sand followed through the year by use of amonia,urea,dried blood hoof and horn and biostimulants as and when required alongside our wetting agent and aeration programme.

This weekend sees the first meeting of the year with the St David's meeting,the course is looking fantasic with the course fully divotted,all areas cut and the links playing beautifully.

We also have re 'chunked ' the 17th fairway bunker following damage by badgers and rabbits

The overgrown bramble to the right of the 6th tee has been removed and has been replaced with turf from the rear of the 4th greens new sandy waste areas and some heather,a vast improvement!

Work has also been carried out to enlarge and reshape the ladies 16th tee and widening the pathway to improve access for machinery to make tee maintenance easier.

As you can see there has been lots of great work carried out on the Links.

Have a great weekend's golfing.

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

P.s apologies for random pictures etc,still having computer gremlins!:(

January winter work Links Team update.

Its been a great start to the year for the Links Team with winning the golf environment awards at the very prestigious award ceremony during the recent British Turf Management Exhibition at Harrogate and we beat off Carnoustie,Hankley common and Lee Park in the final,my thanks go to all involved in this process of change out on the Links.

On a personal note during the BTME exhibition and show i was delighted to pick up my diploma for Continuing Professional Development within the industry.

During this week we attended various day workshops and lots of seminars,a truly great education programme,you never stop learning!

The winter work programme has been progressing really well with lots of key changes being made to the links,below is a picture of the new sand scrape area to the left of the 11th walkway and the removal of the gorse at the rear of the green,not the best picture but the rest of the area behind the green has now been planted with marram and looks great and the removal of the gorse will hopefully deter the rabbits nd lessen the damage to the rear of the green.

Also the new sandy waste area in front of the 5th tee following the removal of the trees,a great natural look and linksy 

feel.

We have also been continuing with the work of  naturalising the bunkers,the picture below is of the 7th left hand bunker,a big visual improvement and much easier playability.

The greens are also improving all the time,hand mowing through the winter has seen a big difference in the wear and tear on the perimeters and with the continuation of sand dressings we are now certainty seeing firmer,smoother and a drier environment favouring the fescues and plant health is looking very good for the time of year.

Back to the bunkers(sorry computer is playing up and pictures not in order)

The 8th fairway bunker before and after,again much better visually.

The newly naturalised 8th fairway bunkers which the tee shot has to be avoided,they really look fabulous off the tee!

The team have also been very busy with the maintenance programme with lots of essential aetation by vertidraining on greens,approaches,walkways and fairways.

 Couple of remodelled naturalised bunkers.

Below again and what i consider to be the best strategic bunker on the course on the 3rd hole,now you can see it as well as being fairer to play out of.

Also the winter work we did last year has settled down beautifully,here is the sandy waste area right of the 2nd Green with pockets of fabulous heather which replaced the trees and bramble,much better!

We have also been continuing our work on the pathways tufing and matting and the grass will eventually grow through this matt making it appear as a natural grass walkway but with the hard wearing path underneath.This on the 9th is a massive improvement and had transformed what was one of the weakest areas on the Links.

Here also are the changes to the 5th bunkers,these look great visually of the tee and blend in perfectly with the surrounding topography.

Sorry about the random pictures but my computer is throwing up some random orders but anyway as you can see the Links Team have been very busy and we still have lots to do in the winter programme and will keep you posted on our progress.

Happy golfing,

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

Winter work update.

Just a quick update on the winter work, Im sure that many of you that have played have seen a few of the changes already carried out by the Links Team.  We started by raising and extending the drain at the rear of the 15th green to try and drain what is one of the wettest areas on the golf course.We also turfed and matted the areas leading up to the 16th tee and leading towards the 16th fairway, this has tidied up this area considerably.

Following on the turfing and matting theme the team have carried out fantastic work on the 9th and 10 th pathways already, with more to do also this winter this will see a huge improvement in the wear and tear and presentation of the walkways. 

 This winter will see a continuation of the great work of scrub clearance from last year with many more areas to be tackled with many being reduced to bare sand to improve the habitat for the mining bees etc and a much more of a links feel in the golfing environment.

We have also been renovating some of the bunkers, many had become very small and poor visually, this is the before picture of the 2nd right hand bunker,

And following the renovation, the bunker was raised a little, brought nearer the green and now with the sand lines visible from the start of the fairway it is a much more visually attractive bunker.

A similar problem on the 3rd hole, a bunker which had got very small and producing some very unfair positions and hidden from play.

 

The bunker has been reshaped and being one of the best strategic bunkers on the golf course is now clear to see and has much more visual interest.(the edges are kept firm so the ball runs into the middle of the bunker)

 The club have invested in a Toro hand mower for the winter months and this will see a dramatic reduction in wear and tear and compaction over the winter months on the greens and approaches when most damage can be made and we will see the improvements next year.
The greens are currently performing very well with very good smoothness, trueness and have been stimping at around 10!

More updates to come as the winter programme continues.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a happy new Year from all the Links team.

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

Happy,happy!

Well that was quite a contrast in months with September's rainfall a mere 16mm and October's rainfall at 175mm!Having just looked at the forecast for this week it doesnt look to great either.

The Links Team have been very busy with the Air2G2 aeration machine having done its job brilliantly and with no disruption to the playing surfaces at all, this machine really is the future of aeration.

Following this we have been overseeding many of the fairways, grassed walkways and green surrounds which have suffered after 40,000 rounds of golf this year,it is however very pleasing to see these areas greatly improved form last year with the use of wetting agent's and a bit more feed on these heavy wear areas to gain more grass coverage.

The overseeding on the greens has been a great success again this year with fabulous germination, we used the plant pot method of using a 13 mm solid tine to an 8mm depth,broadcast the fescue seed on the surface,we use a mix of slender creeping red fescue and chewings fescue with a few different cultivars, the seed is then matted in with a drag matt and a fendess topdressing to help germination.

After steady rainfall and warm temperatures which was perfect germination we applied a sand dressing to the putting surfaces to improve surface levels and a smooth ball roll.

The initial solid tine,seed, matt and topdress.

Now im happy when i see this!Germination!

We have now also decided to switch to a straight sand dressing which will enable us to apply more dressings through the autumn and winter periods when conditions allow.This is one change im very exited about and one i believe will make an enormous difference to the greens as we will accelerate organic matter reduction at the base of the turf which is one of our key objectives whilst creating a drier environment for the fescue to thrive whilst from a playing prespective will give much firmer, smoother and faster greens,now im sure that sounds good to everyone!

And here is another piece of the jigsaw which i believe will again improve the greens tremendously,this is our new greens roller, a demo machine which has come straight from the Ryder Cup, it was so good i couldnt let it go!

The winter programme is now well underway and we will have finished this project behind the 15th green tomorrow of raising what was a very low lying and always flooded in the winter with the high water table.We have raised this area around 18 inches, extended the drainage which was under this green and which goes out to the sea via on outlet pipe,we have also created subtle mounding and turfed and matted the worn areas to the tee and onto the fairway.

The golf course looks in tremendous shape at the moment with the greens undoubtedly as good as they have done all year, the few little changes we have had to carry out to improve plant health in the last few weeks is now really paying dividends.It really is great and very pleasing to see the Links Team's hard work coming to fruition.

We have a very busy winter schedule in front of us with lots of tasks to carry out which will improve the golf course even more, these will include

• Rabbit hole patching
• Removal of Scrub and consented gorse clearence
• Tree removal
• 8 naturalised bunkers
• Removal of shell and astro turf pathways
• Creation of sandy waste areas
• Rough management

As you can see there is a lot to do and there is a lot o rabbit holes,lots of scrub and lots of paths to do as well as also presenting the golf course to the best possible standard on a daily basis.

Best get on with it then!

Regards,

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

Autumn renovations

This is a bit of a shorter blog with another one coming up next week when all work essential work has been completed.

The Presidents meeting was a great success again with good golfing conditions for the keen golfers.

It was rather a sleepless night for me on the Friday with torrential rain and heavy winds forecast so play was in serious doubt at one point and having got wet feet before even arriving to our maintenance facility on the Saturday morning and big puddles of water everywhere it really didnt look good, however a drive around a couple of the greens in the dark with the lights on revealed dry putting surfaces so it was game on.

The team as usual carried out a thorough course set up, cutting and rolling greens, moving holes and tees markers as well as divotting and all bunkers raked and after a showery start by the time we had finished course set up the sun was out and a glorious day lay ahead for the golfers. Phew!

A check of the rainfall gauge did show that we had 46 mm of rain over the weekend but all the aeration this year with the greens draining and performing very well after such heavy rain fall was a relief!

A small note to all golfers, with the Presidents meeting over we will now carry on with our Autumn renovations, the aim as always is to carry out these essential tasks as efficiently as possible with as little disruption as possible.We are aiming to 

• Overseed weaker fairways, walkways
• Topdress greens, tees and wetter fairways.
• Carry out aeration work on Wednesday 8th October, the Links Team will have priority on this day due to the machine being on hire and will need to complete all 19 greens in the one day. Please be patient as this is an essential task. The machine used for this is an Air2g2 self propelled hydrostatic drive three probe air injection machine which fractures the compacted rootzone.The benefits include improved root growth in the root zone through good micro biotic activity. Better drainage and aeration provides a more efficient take up of nutrients and moisture that will have long term beneficial effects to the soil structure and the health of the grass plant.
• Overseeding of the greens the following week to increase the amount of the finer leaved fescue grasses.
• We will also be starting much of the winter work programme soon so there will be lots happening in our quest to improve the golf course even further.

Many thanks,

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