The featured image on this post is a graph of rainfall records from Valley’s archive, which goes back to the 1930s, covering September to December for the last four years. 2025 is in purple, and you will see that the three wettest months in the last forty eight are all this year.
Planned drainage work
The ditch clearance and drain rodding carried out by the staff has resulted in many of the fairways being firmer than we might have expected, but stubborn waterlogged patches remain. We intend to dig out and repair the drain stretching from the trees between 8th & 9th holes across the 8th and 15th fairways to the ditch behind the driving range as soon as we can. There are other troublesome areas which require attention – beginning of the 17th fairway by the 16th green and the beginning of the 18th fairway on the right to name but two.
Many members will be aware that Dic Ces has been successful in applying for a very substantial grant to improve buggy access to the course. Our approach to this will be a combination of things, including rigid gravel grids to improve the buggy paths, notably on the 9th and 10th holes. Softer rubber mats which protect turf will be used near playing surfaces – we have started to improve the buggy path at the top of the rise to the 7th with these, as erosion was causing the camber to become dangerous. A case study from the suppliers’ website is at this link: https://grassmats.co.uk/product-category/golf/
Finally, I should like to pay tribute to the efforts of the Greens staff; they have been out in some very unpleasant weather over the last few weeks. They are always cheerful when I see them, and they do their best to ensure that all members can enjoy the course to the fullest. They decided to clear away some of the bushes on the left hand 6th hole bank; I hope you will agree that the two rock faces thus revealed look stunning. We do recognise that gorse and rock are two of the cardinal features of the course, and in the Spring we hope to do some work to restore some of the gorse which has suffered from weather and enthusiastic ball retrieval over the last few months.
Compliments of the Season to all, from the Greens Team.