The weather last weekend was pretty poor to say the least and with no competition I don't have a lot to report results wise apart from the Ladies Texas Scramble on Tuesday which was won by Pam Darch, Sue Garner, Marion Jones & Debbie Roberts with a net 64 followed by Clare Palmer, Maureen Lillico Norma Napier & Anita Robinson with a net 67.

The Mens PPS 2 played last Thursday was won by the inform Owen Raynor with 38 points beating by Glyn Hughes on a card playoff with and Dale Heggarty in 3rd place with 37 points who beat Jim Harvey on a card playoff.

I was up at Gleneagles for the weekend where my clubs came out of retirement as one of my mates has a timeshare.Eight of us made the journey and were lucky enough to play the three Gleneagles courses as well as the Old Course at St Andrews. We had a great time and were lucky only to get rained on for 3 holes over the weekend. The Ryder Cup course was the toughest of the three by far with the rough being very punishing. Luckily I only hit it in there a couple of times but on one occasion I only managed to move the ball about 2 yards and that was with a gap wedge!!!

Rod has done a piece below and has asked me to mention we seem to have a member who keeps moving the Blue tee on the 4th onto the back tee so if you know who it is please tell him stop or let Rod or I know and we will.

There are some good deals on irons at present with Callaway offering a free wedge & bag with any X2 Hot  irons bought and Taylormade offering a free bag with ant set of Speedblade irons. There must be 7 irons purchased.

TaylorMade are also offering a 30 day Money Back Guarantee on there SLDR and Jetspeed Drivers.

NOTICE: DIVOTING PARTY WEDNESDAY 11TH JUNE 2014 SEE BELOW FOR DETAILS*

You cannot get better grass growing weather than this can you?

Well actually yes, you can – that is from a green-keeping perspective!

The grass is growing too fast for the greens staff to keep up with it, particularly the rough, semi rough and fairways. Perversely, the only grass that has remained stubbornly slow is the annual meadow grass in the greens. This has actually started to grow more quickly in the last week or so and Jason has been able to verti-cut the greens. I appreciate that there is still some bobble across the greens, although they are “running out” quite truly.

I am pleased to note that the greens are significantly better that at the same period last year and this is very promising for the coming months. We shall continue to aerate the greens with solid tining and top dressing on a monthly basis. The disruption so far is minimal with all top dressing filling the holes and getting down to the base of the plant – the May tining went almost unnoticed.

I am sure that you are well aware by now that our objective is to have “bent” grass as the dominant grass cultivar in the greens and we are well down the road to achieving this. The spring STRI report shows strong progress in the organic matter content. The Report states “For the first time the OM levels in the 0-20mm and the 20-40mmdepth ranges are in target for all three greens”.

The Report continues reminding us that now is not the time to be complacent as the Annual Meadow Grass (the dominant species) has a tendency to produce thatch (our archenemy!) and we must keep up the pressure on it. This means maintaining the aeration work and controlling irrigation and fertiliser inputs. Alistair Beggs adds, “In summary these results are excellent and extremely pleasing”.

We realise that it is difficult to locate balls in the rough at the moment so we shall continue to cut the rough as low as possible. In the next few weeks, grass growth will weaken as it becomes stressed. We shall then review the length of cut.

I plan to push ahead with thinning the rough generally and Jason will “trial” the process on an area adjacent to the practice ground this week. I shall let you know how it goes.

You will have noticed that we have changed the cutting patterns around some of the greens. It was recognised that in some places golfers were penalised unfairly when close to the green.

*DIVOTING PARTY – PLEASE HELP IF YOU CAN NEXT WEDNESDAY MEET AT THE PRO SHOP AT 9.30AM BRING A BUCKET AND GLOVES PLEASE. The new “divot bags” are due and it will be most helpful if we can repair the divots beforehand.

Please use the divot bags when available but PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE DO NOT TAKE THE EMPTY BAGS HOME! (OR FULL BAGS FOR THAT MATTER).

Rod Backhouse