The weather has been brilliant all through October, although it will no-doubt get us back.   Solid-tining of Abbotts fairways starts this week, the 18th fairway below took 3hrs to solid-tine 4" deep at 2" centres, 3 fairways tined today.  Once again we have 20 ton of coarse sand being spread on the poor and wet areas.  Greens are still looking good on both courses with the Abbotts receiving a second fungicide application this week to keep disease levels down until winter weather sets in.

A slow job!

Summer,what we had of it is now long gone.  As we move through a dry stable weather pattern winter preparation is now top priority.  This week we have solid-tined tees, path ends, aprons, normal problem areas on the course and some larger areas on fairways.  The 20 ton of course grit sand that arrived on Wednesday afternoon is nearly all gone(heavy sanding of weak, wet areas), key fairways have been divoted.  Next week will see tees feed, more solid tining with larger tines being used to smash through compacted areas, along with a tonic on the greens, followed by deep-tining of the greens the next week.

The below picture is the 12th apron,  7 through to 12 have been sprayed with a product to kill rye grass.  All the grass in the centre of the picture has been discoloured due to the stress brought about by the chemical application.  Only areas that are brown i.e the thin left strim in this photo will die. All these areas have been overseeded and should fill in fairly quickly leaving a better surface to play on.

12th Apron

The 7th fairway being solid-tined below.  Tines going in some 7 inches which can only help when the rains come.

7th Fairway

And finally on an unfunny note:  Accidents do happen, even with a well trained team, robust risk assessments, time taken out to educate staff, together with online safety courses and daily machine checks.  Luckily, localized bruising and a lesson learnt were the only casualty on the day. 

Oh dear