What a difference a Week Makes .............. Well, not much really!

Its been a week since my last blog post, and nothing has really changed weather wise. Apart from we've had a bit of sun, which makes it look as if its nice enough to go out and play some golf. I'm sure once your out there you may have changed your mind by the time you get to around the 3rd hole. With the windchill getting down to as low as -7 at times. Its not nice to play in, and equally not nice to grow grass in.  The wind over this past week has been strong and very drying, and when you look at the course, in particular the fairways it resembles a mid August day, with the fairways turning a little brown and looking a little bit scorched. The same goes for the greens.
I've heard a few moans and groans about the greens over the last few days and thought it might be wise to set the record straight to try and quell the vicious rumour/Chinese whispers.
Unfortunately the weather hasn't been on our side, with soil temperatures still sitting way below average at around 1degree. To give you an idea, we were up around 12.5degrees this time last year, and irrigating because the greens were scorching from the 20degree+ heat.  We really need an average soil temperature of around 5degrees to be able to put some granular fertiliser down, which will then help to kickstart the greens into action.  I really do believe that we are on the cusp of the weather turning for the better. With it predicted to slowly begin to warm up from Saturday onwards all the way up to the mid teens for the latter part of next week!! However it seems there may be some of those 'April showers' on the way too.
I know the greens aren't great to putt on at the moment. But now it seems that the snow, and hard deep frosts have gone for now, work on them will resume next week. They will be heavily top dressed at the beginning of the week. Which will smooth them out a lot. We will also continue to roll the heave down caused by the gravel banding. If weather permits, a granular feed will be put on before doing our usual 'greenkeepers rain dance' which should then wash it in nicely. Then we're off full steam ahead into the first major competition of the year! Which just happens to be on the Masters final day, so please, no comparing courses!!  A special mention needs to go to our Pro Simon Lynns' Brother, David Lynn (@DaveLynndawg  for you tweeters out there.) Its his first time ever in the Masters, and i'd like to wish him all the best from everyone at Trentham Park Gc! Bring home the green jacket for us! And to those members going out to watch him - bring us some of that sunshine back!!
I'm sure some of you will have noticed some red dotted lines down each tee? These are lines for the staff to follow when cutting tees, I'm sure you will agree once they have been cut out that they will be pointing in the right direction! So no more excuses for hitting it out of bounds on the 12th!
Other jobs this week have been to finish off the clearance of the scrub on the 15th hole, this work is now complete for this year, apart from a few stumps to cut out once we get a new chainsaw blade. Work to the right hand side at the bottom of the bank will commence back end of this year.
The back of the 6th tee has also had a good clean up with all brambles and scrub removed from the left hand side of the tee, up around the back and around the corner of the fifth wood this should look fantastic once the area has had chance to 'grow out' a little. Well done to the boys and thanks for all your hard work!!
I'll leave you with a couple of pictures of the last job. Don't forget, if you have a question, please ask it either on here using the comments box, or when you see me out on the course.
Regards
Leigh

6th Tee Before

6th Tee after