Happy new year to you all. Well the weather trend has carried on from last year into the new although temperatures are starting to dip a little now with fingers crossed a dry spell coming in. We are at saturation point at the moment (or field capacity). The water table is at its highest with this winters rain fall, well actually since august it has been building up as the figures below show. Aug 106.2mm, Sept 66.5mm, Oct 58.7mm, Nov 105.2mm, Dec 75.7, and 50mm in the first 6 days of January. So when the water table reaches a certain point any rain falling thereafter has no where to go. With this back up in the soil profile it takes longer for any rainfall to percolate through to the subsoil where it will drain freely. Closing the course isn't taken lightly. I appreciate a lot of you are working people and only have the weekends to play golf or your golfing time is limited during the week that is why i do not take the decision to close the course lightly. My decision is purely made on the conditions at Burnham. I never consider other course closures in the area as every site is different e.g courses like Gerrards Cross, Stoke park, Lambourne all have big walk off areas around their greens and can spread the wear better. Flackwell heath, Wycombe heights are all situated high up and are free draining, so these course could potentially be closed less than us. We are a very tightly packed course with tees and greens in close proximity (pinch points). marshalling traffic is tricky. A good case of this is the area just short of the 8th approach. We had ropes across that area when the bunkers were being constructed for 3 months. With the traffic from golfers walking across the same path and it has caused compaction which in turn adds to the fibre levels. Compaction is a silent killer if you like. You cant see the damage it is doing at the time but the damage it dose to the structure of the soil is detrimental and is only highlighted in the winter when water can not percolate the compacted soil and fibrous turf. We are now at the point where the course is closing for health & safety reasons. We have recently had a lady member slip down the bank on the 5th, thankfully she is ok and that is what we are trying to avoid. There are numerous dangerous areas out there at the moment. Its all about the recovery in the spring. Balancing opening the course with the damage it will cause.
OTHER NEWS
We have a few areas at fronts of greens which look like we have lost grass. It looks a lot worse that what it actually is. Where we have been dressing the greens and approaches a lot lately we have managed to overlap a little too much and covered the grass. There is full grass coverage underneath but the sand has stained the grass giving it a orange appearance. also these areas are high wear areas i.e mowers turning and cutting, golfers walking on and off.
All the new bunkers have been finished bar the sanding which will be done as soon as we can get the tractor out there.
15th & 12th path have been completed and are proving to be a great success. We just need to grind a few stumps out on the 12th bank.
New roller shutters & bollard have been fitted to the green keepers complex for extra security.
Pictures below of the new 12th & 15th paths
Thank you for all your support in 2015 and also you patience. Finger crossed the weather is on the change. I will do my best to keep the course open as much as possible. For those of you that are carrying thank you, for those of you that could carry please consider it as it is the trolleys that cause the wear and for those of you who can not carry i understand. Unfortunately if these weather patterns persist we maybe looking at trolley bans in the future.
Thank you for reading
Lee & Green Keeping Team
Thank you for reading
Lee & Green Keeping Team