Our Q&A Night with Martin Dempster, The Scotsman newspaper golf correspondent will go ahead on Friday, 26th February. We have reached our goal of tickets to be sold, which covers the cost of the evening, but don't worry, there are still tickets available! 

Tickets cost £15 and include a buffet supper. (Buffet supper will commence at 7pm with the evening's Q&A starting around 7.30 / 7.45pm) Book your spot today in the pro shop on payment.

Any money raised over and above the price of our speaker and the food costs will be given to Cancer Research. We hope you all come along and support this evening as it should be very interesting listening to Martin's tales as a golf/sports correspondent with the Scotsman newspaper. Questions for the evening can be submitted prior to the night. Please click here to submit your questions. 

 

Some of our brave members went out on the course in the morning on Saturday past. Given the terrible weather they did very well to last a few holes...



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Head Greenkeepers Blog - 16/02/16

Welcome back to the blog after a short break, where the weather had an impact on productivity out on the golf course. 

The last few months have been very poor with us seeing 515mm rainfall between Nov - Jan. To put this into perspective we received 507mm in the first 10 months of 2015, so we exceeded that in these last 3 months alone.

This halted any progress we had made with bunker construction and also any other winter projects we had planned. The last thing we want is to cause more damage by us running diggers, tractors and trailers over the course in these conditions, as all it will do is give us more work to correct in the spring.

Thankfully in last few weeks the weather has given us a bit of a break and we have been glad to get back to bunker construction and made some very good progress. Next up to disrupt is was a storm which hit us pretty hard and left us with a full fortnight of clearing up fallen trees and debris. We got off fairly lightly with us only losing a couple of trees and multiple large limbs.

The one obvious casualty is the large Beech tree (fagus sylvatica) on the driveway which we now know was suffering from Giant polypore (Meripilus giganteus) which is of particular concern because it can cause extensive internal damage before there is any external evidence of its presence. We have taken professional advice and aware of any symptoms to look out for on our other trees.

As previously mentioned this winter programme consisted mainly of bunker reconstruction and ongoing improvements. The reason behind this redesign of the bunkers was based on feedback from industry specialists and the views of myself and Colin. It is regularly noted that we are too perfect and not rustic enough which we have identified ourselves in the past.

Also if we want to continue to retain and further enhance our unique heathland characteristics then we feel this is an ideal area to work on. The renovation program on fairway bunkers will be over 3 years where we aim to naturalise and create more scalloped, inconsistent shapes and with the clever use of desirable grasses these will become more natural.

We know this may not seem the case initially but give it time and our long wispy fescue will come up on these moundings, we will transplant some heather onto them and they will look the way a heathland bunker should. 

This also eliminates the risk of contamination from exposed revetted faces which we have identified as a problem along with the increasing cost and unsustainable nature of revetting bunkers. Currently we have completed 1st (see below) 2nd and the 5th is well underway.

 

Callaway & Titleist fittings available 

We have seen an unprecedented demand for new product from Callaway and Titleist and so early in the new year. We urge you if you've never had a fitting to consider looking into it. We are delighted to help you select the right product for you and we can do so with no charge. Speak to us in the pro shop for more information.

Click here to book or request your fitting.  

New Member Shoe Service 

As we mentioned last week we are now offering a new shoe service where we will not only respike/stud your shows but we will also give them a good clean to get them looking like new. 

All this for only £16.99 . Pop in with your shoes and test us out. 

Regripping offer 

Get your clubs in now and beat the rush on re gripping. We still have our great deals on for multiple clubs.  

FootJoy 2016 Shoe Range 

This is set to arrive in the shop next week. This is the start of our stock to arrive for 2016. Please call in for a look in the coming weeks or check us out on social media for day to day stock deliveries.