Autumn Work on Wee Course

Over the past 6 weeks we have spent many hours clearing up leaves, especially the 7th hole as the
prevailing winds blow many leaves from neighboring woods. just as we thought we were nearing the end the high winds returned yet again blowing over ten trees between the 2nd and the 5th greens and scattering large amounts of debris over most of the course.  

Hole 16 on Rosemount - Out of Bounds

A new defining edge is being added to the 'out of bounds'. Wooden boards are being put in place, soil added then turfed which will give it a more definite edge. The area will be white lined and ground under repair.

Autumn

Temp 0 C, 2nd frost in 3 days.

Rosemount 2nd Tee Bank

With the advice of The Scottish Golf Environment Group we have planted shrubs that attract wildlife (birds, butterflies, bumble bees etc). Once the shrubs grow and spread we hope to have a blanket of colour at different times of the year.

Course update June

With growth now in full swing the courses are looking great and as predicted the sun is shining making it a very enjoyable experience to come and play. Club championship finals this week so good luck to all involved. 

Wee course maintenance will commence on Monday 7th and with current weather conditions the course should be back to normal very quickly. 

 

Course Update 10/05/2013

Since the last update there has been some improvement in the greens and are slowly coming along but due to cold, drying winds and very little rainfall they are still struggling a little. We are not alone with this as we have spoken to several members from other clubs and our sales reps who travel the length of the country and are constantly in contact with other courses and everybody is in the same boat.  We Keep getting told that links courses are excellent at the moment and the greens are superb, this is due to the different species of grass they have, no trees to shade the course and the lack of snow/frost they get through the winter.
Speaking to our reps about other courses and what fertilisers have had the best results as a start up feed and they have all said the same, nowhere has had much success with their first feed and that the growth actually went back with the cold, drying winds.
We are still confident that this will be a good year and hope you can understand that we are doing everything we can to get things moving but the one thing we are not in control of is the weather.

COURSE UPDATE 19/04/2013

Over the past week we have seen a steady rise in soil temperatures and they are now reading an average of 12 C over the courses meaning we are now seeing some growth on all areas. Over the past couple of weeks we have been putting a lot of our time into the greens with cutting, shaping, rolling, top dressing, over seeding, fertilising, verti-draining and verti-cutting. All of these procedures are necessary to help with winter recovery. On a whole the greens have come out of winter well and for the time of year are in excellent condition with the exception of few which will require some extra attention but hopefully with this warmer weather and the work being put in will recover quickly. Other work on the courses has included the cutting of tees, approaches, fairways, bankings, divoting, scrub and dead broom clearing, and general tidying up after some strong winds. We are all confident that with the hard work being put in by all greenstaff, the current condition of the courses, and with hopefully the mild weather set to continue we will be back in top condition and it will be a good season to be playing golf at The Blairgowrie Golf Club.

 

 





Turf Nursery

First steps of re-seeding the turf nursery taking place. The turf nursery saves the club a lot of money as buying in turf can be expensive. When turf is grown in our area it then becomes climatised to our local temperature and conditions.

New swilken bridge, practice greens and flower bed

The golfing season has officially started here at Blairgowrie but the cold weather still continues with a night time temperature of night of -5 last night and some cold nights forecast for the rest of the week. On a more positive note the courses have come out of winter in good condition with little disease scarring on the greens. Soil temperature is still to low for any growth meaning the application of fertiliser would be wasted at this time. During these cold spells we are kept busy with blowing bankings, edging the pathways, clearing the woods of fallen debris and removing dead broom from around the courses.

Course condition

With the course official opening less that 2 weeks away the snow has come back and cold weather is forecast for the rest of the week.

Stump grinding

Stump grinding is now taking place on the Lansdowne course, they will be taken down to 4 inch below ground level and left with a scattering of wood chips on top.

Rosemount 17th - Bridge Construction

Bridge construction at the Rosemount 17th

Bridge construction at Rosemount 17th

Course condition

After many weeks of snow lying over the courses it is slowly starting to melt meaning work has started to pick up pace on some of the winter projects, these include the new bridge at 17th Rosemount, the new target greens beside the Wee Course and the installation of new irrigation on the 5th on Lansdowne. Strong winds over the past week have helped with melting the snow but have left us with a lot of debris to clear up over the courses.

Wee course drainage

Here is the drainage installed on the 2nd hole. The trench has been backfilled with gravel and already showing signs of working with an obvious flow of water

Bridge construction at Rosemount 17th.

Pipe has now been installed and concrete foundations laid.

New target greens

One of the new target greens ready for turf.

Practice range green

We are building two new target greens on the range beside the Wee Course. There will be a green at 100 yards and one at 150 yards both with bunkers

Weather

Heavy snow and low temperature has left the courses with a covering of 2 inches of snow.

2nd hole Wee Course drainage

Drainage work on the 2nd hole has started, the idea is to catch the water in the drains before it reaches the green which has become very soft at the front and around the back. The drains are at a depth of 600mm with a 100mm perforated pipe inserted directing all water to a ditch at the rear of the green.

New walkway to 16th Martini Tee on Rosemount taking shape.

The start of a new year at The Blairgowrie Golf Club and we are back on full greens. The courses have dried up considerably due to the wind with no major tree damage.
We have a few winter projects going on at the moment, one major project which is the installation of a swilken bridge over the burn at the 17th hole on the Rosemount course. Others include the extention of the Martini tee on Rosemount, tree transplanting on Lansdowne, cartway and walkoff renovation through the courses, returfing some of the soft wet areas that were left after last year and installation of drains through some of the worst affected parts of the course. The 2nd and 3rd holes on the Wee Course have been shortened to allow us to start drainage around the 2nd green, over the past few wet years we have noticed the green becoming increasingly wet due to the water that runs down the slope towards the green, the drainage will help catch the water as it runs down and diverted it around the approach and green then into the burn behind.

We would like to wish our members a Happy New Year and lets just hope the sun is shining throughout 2013.