We suffered a delayed start last Wednesday afternoon and also lost a couple of hours to the weather on Friday evening - consequently our activities slightly overran this Tuesday and we were topdressing the last 3-greens on Wednesday morning.
Our topdressing of choice matches the construction material of the new JHTaylor back-9 greens.
For ease of maintenance and to maintain the swift momentum of greens-renovation activities it is delivered dry.
We applied 80-tonnes of sand over 18-holes.
This is worked into the surface with a steel dragmatt.
The action of this moving over the surface quickly restores smooth surfaces by pulling sand off high areas and moving it around to fill depressions, core-holes, pitchmarks and any scuffs from machinery and foot-traffic.
Allied with sand-topdressing we also apply a granular seaweed soil-improver.
When the surface restoration work with the steel dragmatt is exhausted the greens are lightly rolled to sweeten-off the surfaces.
The greens were cut on Friday afternoon with a machine set-up with units for mowing immediately after greens renovations.
This machine will likely remain on the course until Tuesday when it will be retired onto the cylinder grinder.
This morning, and for this weekend, the greens will remain a little woolly and the wrong side of sandy. Granular seaweed and granular fertiliser remains evident on the surface.
Elsewhere, the threat of the arrival of summer should ease the damp and heavy ground conditions of recent months.
The eco-rough areas remain work in progress but improving light intensity. light-quality and warmer drier weather allied to routine weedkilling spray operations will see these area continue to flourish.
Our intention is to provide a border and framework to each hole. The trade-off to not mowing 3-inch rough into all four-corners of the courses has been to extend the semi-rough/trim areas through in-play areas.
