Its been a little while since my last post, over the last two weeks not only has the weather improved but we have experienced some good greenkeeping conditions.
Work on the course has been predominately centred around surface preparations and this week we have again top dressed both sets of greens and for the first time this year we have verti cut all greens.

The picture above shows the verti cut units, these vertically rake the surface to take out any lateral growth or seed heads of the annual meadow grass. It is very important to us not to be too aggressive with verti cutting and set the depth at 1mm above ground level, any lower than this and you risk removing too much grass tissue and weakening any new or seedling grasses which may be in the sward. The finer grasses which we are trying to manage and dominate our greens can also be harshly effected by too aggressive verti cutting. This operation is also useful in helping to integrate the top dressing into the sward.

We have applied in the region of 10 tones on each course, Lodge yesterday and Highgate today. this will be a our last dressing until after the run of major competitions which we have coming up in the diary.

Both courses are beginning to shape up nicely, one job that really does not get the credit it deserves is hole changing. We generally change holes up to four times per week and great care is taken to make a clean new hole we use up to date hole changers which take out a complete plug using a single blade which leaves no imperfections around the edge.

Pedestrian mowing is continuing on both courses as we feel that although it is a little more time consuming than ride on mowing it gives us a far superior finished and look to the tees as shown above on the 1st Lodge.

fairway definition has really improved over the last week with all fairways really thickening out and the fescue doing nicely.