The growth of the gorse to the left of the 18th red tee is quite striking, and is revealed in the following two pictures. The top one still has the nets by the junior locker room and the wall at the front of the first tee, so is some years ago. At some stage, we will try to restore the situation in the earlier picture as it would be nice to have a better view of the fairway from the tees.
Course maintenance week
The hollow tining and top dressing arranged before last Autumn were very effective and we have booked the company in again for 11th August, the day after the Pro-Am. We will try to designate the week after Open Week as Course Maintenance Week each year, as the weather at the time should promote more rapid recovery. We are also following the advice of the Course Consultant, Peter Jones, in applying somewhat more top dressing to the greens on a “little and often” basis.
Drainage
The drain leading away from the right hand side of the 7th fairway was clogged by plant roots, so we are intending to replace it and the drain which runs from the trees between 8th & 9th holes to the ditch by the old pump house to the right of the 15th fairway. We also hope put in a new drain right of the 15th fairway as it goes up the hill, an area which was wet all Winter. The purpose of all of this is to improve the playability of the course for all, but particularly to reduce the necessity to restrict buggies.
Old Photographs
These photographs have been scanned in from the 1971 Club Handbook. Despite the relatively low resolution, it is plain that much of the gorse and rough which we now regard as integral parts of the course were simply not present 50 years ago. Similarly it was notable in the Spring that clumps of daffodils which were presumably planted in relatively benign areas are now several yards into the rough. We should give some thought to whether some of the more challenging areas could usefully be tamed to reduce the number of lost balls and time-consuming ball searches.
