31/05/2010
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This week sees us preparing for the St Andrews Links Trophy which will be held on the Old Course on Sunday. Yesterday we hosted the final two rounds of the St Rule Trophy which is a high profile ladies competition, unfortunately we had around 15mm of rain which fell during the night and early morning which we all felt yesterday morning! Fortunately it did not stop our preparations too much and was completed as scheduled yesterday evening.
It will be another busy week ahead preparing for the Links Trophy with more course presentation planned on fairways. This morning we started to spray off semi roughs which have seen a bit of the usual weed infestation we normally see at this time of year, so we applied a selective herbicide which helps to eradicate this in our new sprayer which arrived last week. Forecast is rain tomorrow so we will probably not get back to that until later in week.
The main focus this week will be on presenting the course for the tournament at the weekend. We are closed on Saturday so that will allow us to get some extra work done on fairways and planning brushing rough as well that day.
Grandstand build is on schedule with stand to left of 6th fairway completed and contractors back on site tomorrow and heading to 9th greenside. Have a meeting with them tomorrow morning. Tented village build will pick up this week with work starting on press tent on Bruce Embankment and hospitality area on practice range.
Later in the week I have a photo call for an advert in the official Open programme on behalf of our Global Partner – Allianz.
With us losing one of our staff last week to pastures new I have seconded a member of staff from the New Course to assist us for the next six weeks or so in our preparations, so all numbers back to normal in what is going to be a busy six weeks or so!
Posted: by
Gordon McKie
28/05/2010
Big change in weather from last week, temperatures have fallen dramatically by near 10 degrees! The other day we even had a shower of heavy hail stones, which is certainly unseasonal – even in these parts! At least the growth will have slowed down slightly.
Through the course of the week we have managed to complete the verti cutting of the greens and fairways bar the 1st & 18th which will have to wait until next week. Plenty of cutting with small 3250’s to further tighten the sward up. Today we ran the big mowers over the fairways just to keep on top of them in the run up to the weekend.
A couple of unforeseen problems arose this week – firstly we had an irrigation problem on 14th fairway where we had another leak at a t-piece connection which we managed to repair quickly. Next problem was an area which had sunk on the 6th fairway, after an exploratory dig yesterday we exposed an old drain which we thought might have collapsed, the problem was not as bad as we thought and we back filled with gravel and got that back in playing order in time for the Local Gold Medal 1st round.
On Wednesday I had and interview to do with Greenkeeper International magazine, which is a greenkeeping journal, who were doing an article on the preparations for The Open – that will appear in the July issue.
Busy week as I said last blog with patrons' days. Also on Wednesday we had the “ Golden Bear" himself in town – Jack Nicklaus was at the practice range giving a clinic to patrons and he later gave a clinic to a group of budding golfers from SALJGA. Unfortunately he was not on course, but hopefully we will see him back in July!
Grandstand build continues and the stand to left of 6th is complete, contractors are on a long weekend and will be back on Tuesday at the 9th.
This weekend sees us preparing for the St Rule Trophy on Sunday and ideal chance for the guys to brush up our tournament set up skills! This morning I have been round looking at pin positions for next weeks Links Trophy, so another busy week ahead.
The week ends with one of my staff leaving the Links and heading for pastures new. David Feeney, who has been with us on the Old Course since 2007, leaves today and is heading for a new position at St Annes Old Links at Lytham – best of luck David!
Posted: by
Gordon McKie
25/05/2010
Sunday was a bit of a wash out with around 13mm of rain falling within a couple of hours, some localised flooding to fairways was the problem which slowed down our plans to verti cut and cut fairways. With that amount of rain and the high temperatures we have been receiving over the last week it has produced a considerable amount of growth! On Monday when we were cutting greens we were averaging around a box of grass per green, which is a lot – happy to report that we are now back to a normal ½ box.
In the early part of the week we have been busy with routine cutting and trying to get back on top of cutting fairways with the 3250 greens triples, this has been preceded by verti cutting to a depth of 1mm to remove the lateral growth, then followed up by a cut with the 5410 fairway mowers to remove the excess grass then a final cut with the smaller mowers. The finish we are achieving is great and we are starting to get that polished finish we are looking for. Aim to continue this through to end of week.
Been a busy week as far as media is concerned, I had a couple of interviews to do regarding the Open, one for Bunkered magazine which will run in their Open preview edition. Later this week I shall be speaking to Greenkeeper International, an industry journal, on my preparations for The Open.
Have been out with the Chief Marshall this week looking at crossing points around course and where we intend placing them, so as I can start to make plans to cut them out sometime in near future.
STRI were in yesterday afternoon taking some smoothness measurements with their new device which will be used through the year – apparently we are not too bad for time of year.
The grandstand build has now moved onto to 6th greenside with the stand to the left of the green being done at the moment, they then move onto the stand at the rear of the green.
Patrons' days have started on the course, with a couple out this week – spotted Monty out there today – hope he thinks course is up to scratch!
Posted: by
Gordon McKie
21/05/2010
What a difference 10 days makes, over a week ago we were experiencing a cold snap and even hail stones, now we find ourselves basking in summer sunshine. With that comes grass growth which I have been delighted to see. We are now starting to see some definition to the course with the rough starting to sprout up and looking good.
So the last couple of days has seen a considerable amount of growth kick in, so it has been all hands to the decks and we have been increasing our cutting programmes across the board to keep on top of it.
Yesterday we had to revert back to cutting fairways with the larger fairway mowers to speed the process up, but still took a large amount of grass off. Today we are starting to lightly verti cut the fairways which is being followed up by a dry cut behind.
On the greens things are starting to slow up because of the growth, so plan to increase the cutting programme and rolling programme to help maintain the desirable pace on the surfaces. I have also lowered our height of cut on greens to 4.5mm which will help the cause! Today we have actually carried out a second dry cut to remove excess grass which is not being picked up through wet dewy cuts first thing. Over the weekend we plan to apply our monthly application of wetting agent which will help combat any drier areas of the greens and keep them moist. Other jobs this weekend will be to carry out some verti cutting on tees as well, as we are experiencing some lateral growth on the surfaces at this time.
I met with the R&A this week to discuss my plans for course set up on the week of the Open, we have been working on the various tasks that we plan to carry out for a couple of months now and we will be pulling the final work plan together in consultation with the R&A over the coming weeks. We will probably have in the region of 65 staff assisting in setting the course up each morning, which is a lot to organise and plan!
Grandstand build work continues at 15th, which looks like it will finish today, then onto the 6th greenside early next week.
Next week sees the closure of the Golf Practice Centre and Bruce Embankment where work will start on hospitality and press areas.
Now only 28 days until course closes – can’t wait!!
Posted: by
Gordon Mckie
18/05/2010
Looks like we are in for a warmish week with temperatures to climb as the week goes on, that should encourage some well overdue growth that us greenkeepers are craving!
Good amount of work achieved over the weekend with staff getting all greens and immediate surrounds top dressed on Sunday, as well as some routine mowing on greens, tees and surrounds after they were lightly verti cut to remove some lateral growth.
Today we carried on with some of that routine mowing and as it was a great day weather wise. We managed to carry on with some more cutting of fairways with 3250’s. Fairways are now starting to look good and very tight, need to keep this work up to maintain the standard through the up and coming tournaments.
We started to remove some fencing around the new 17th championship tee today as we have World Golf Tour coming on Wednesday to do some photography for an Open Championship golf game.
Links Trophy meeting today with the organising committee discussing the set up for the tournament which is only three weeks away!
Grandstands continue, with work on 7 and 11 nearing completion and work starting on thegreenside build at 15th. Scoreboards are gradually appearing around the course and everything is starting to take shape.
Later this week we plan to aerate some pedestrian walkways and overseed these areas to try and re-establish grass in heavily worn areas.
Congratulations to Dundee Utd on their victory at the weekend!
Posted: by
Gordon McKie