(I know only people of a certain age will get this reference, but I couldn’t resist!) The Greens As you will have noticed we took great care of the greens through the summer and, with the exception of some animal damage around the edges and a couple of dry patches, these have remained in good playing condition. A review of sprinkler locations and patterns is already underway with the aim of including more of the aprons next summer. This has to be balanced against the availability of water, particularly in light of the addition of tees irrigation, so options for adding ponds are also under review as we have a limit to the amount of water we can take from our natural source. The Bunkers The 3rd bunker is almost complete and necessarily benefits from sub-surface drainage to manage the flow of spring water beneath the bunker. The entrance to the green to the left of the bunker has been widened significantly in line with our general policy of creating risk/reward golf that does not unfairly punish a slight miss. The bunker is half the size of the previous one but will retain its full effect due to the design of surrounding slopes. The apron between green and bunker has been widened to enable the wider apron strip as implemented throughout the course. The 4th right bunker was nearing completion, but the lack of rain meant the seeded area around the bunker did not germinate. Therefore, an additional manual sprinkler was added on a long hose for daytime use and it is good to now see the grass has now germinated in the band around the bunker. It will still take a little time to complete this repair but better progress has been made recently. The Fairways Generally, the fairways have played better than previous summers due to the regime of overseeing in the past couple of years. Along with aeration and top-dressing, we will continue to overseed and continue the improvements. We are never likely to have fairway irrigation as we would never have enough water for it, but hopefully, the preferred lies local rule through the dry conditions has helped significantly. The new drainage at the edge of the right hand penalty area running up to the 3rd green is underway and is being implemented in a way that should mean completion before the rains arrive! It will enable the fairway to be widened and is an important step towards the ultimate plan to move the penalty area down to the water’s edge. Once completed, the rough mown area will be widened, and we intend for it to remain accessible to mowers throughout winter. Drainage schemes to manage sub-surface flow always require an iterative approach to see how nature responds and act accordingly. Fingers crossed! The Tees Our tees remain the main weakness on the course, particularly under much heavier traffic of recent years and the increased frequency of long, dry spells. Whilst some tees have access to irrigation, it is a manual process requiring application during the day – not something that is very easy when the course is being played. The greens benefit from automatic irrigation with watering at night when there is nobody around to be covered in what is effectively pond water! As all you gardeners will also appreciate, this also means that water can go into the ground without the threat of immediate evaporation in hot and sunny conditions. We have now invested in the materials and components required to install automatic tees irrigation for all coloured tees on 15th, 4th, 7th, 10th and for white and yellow tees on the 6th. Once the current work on 4th and 3rd holes has been completed during September, we will start installing this irrigation. Other tees will follow. Some of our teeing areas are small and irregularly shaped which is unhelpful when the existing tee box becomes worn as there are limited alternative options, and without watering the worn areas have no chance of recovery without rain. The greenkeepers can seed and top dress, but it does nothing without water. Any new tees being build will be built large! You can see this on the 15th and 6th yellow tees in particular and we will follow suit with brand new teeing areas on the 16th and 8th over the next two winter seasons. Other inadequate tees will be enlarged, with a main focus on the yellows which are used by 90% of players, hence become most worn. The dry tee surfaces also become heavily compacted, and we would like to aerate them more regularly. However, getting spikes into this hard ground is almost impossible and would damage machinery rather than do any good. Once nightly irrigation is in place, there is much more opportunity to aerate through the drier months. Water Security This is some of the important hidden work that members will never see but is critical to maintaining the course, after all water is not something we can manage without through a drought. The water used for irrigation comes from springs that flow into three lakes, the top one of which you see by the 3rd fairway. We take water from the lower of these three lakes and pump it up to the pond between the 9th and 18th fairways and we have been investing in the lower pump over the summer months. First, we have purchased and installed a new pump and the old one will be reconditioned for us to have a spare. In the middle of the first heat wave, we had some apparent electrical issues suggesting a problem with our 400m power supply cable, but this turned out to be an overheating control panel which was resolved quite quickly by improving air flow. However, it did highlight an exposure we were not happy to accept. Therefore, a suitably capable diesel generator has been purchased and work done to enable a quick connection in the event that we ever did lose the cable. This makes us far more resilient in dry conditions. The shed in which the lower pump resides had become quite dilapidated with a collapsed roof and rotten frame on two sides so Pawel (general maintenance superstar) custom-built a new building around the lower pump which has achieved a number of objectives: Enhanced public safety considering the 415v installation (although there is no path providing public access, it is close to the nature trail); weather protection of a mission-critical pump; designed to provide natural air flow for better cooling in hot weather; opportunity to test the design and build method in advance of similar work on the irrigation pump house between the 9th and 18th fairways. Finally, in doing this work on the pump house, we also landscaped the steeply sloping area around it to improve vehicular access for bringing in the new generator should we need it, and we added drainage to protect the new building from the heavy spring flow out of the slope. In other news… The lockers are installed (only aesthetic finishing touches to complete) and everyone who has applied for one will hear from me shortly, if you have not already got your key. The front patio is progressing. Unfortunately, we missed the summer due to a few technical challenges and also being hampered by the heat waves and irrigation priority, but progress is now being made once again. We thank you for your patience and are confident that this will significantly improve The 19th Hole. On 31st August, it was good to see a good number of members enjoying the music and market event held by our neighbours. This is an increasingly popular event held every Whitsun and August bank holiday, and was one of the catalysts for enlarging our parking facility. The lower car park, despite not yet having a proper surface on half of it, enabled an additional 65 cars to be parked in addition to the 100 cars in the main car park and at least 40 cars parked elsewhere. With the increasing number of Nature Park visitors, many of whom arrive by car, this is an important development as we will be directing all non-golf club traffic to use the lower car park with new signage once the entrance slope and surfaces are completed. The event provided a useful test! We have had 110 new members this year, with 66 being full members, and it’s great to see membership numbers grow and the course being frequented by a higher proportion of members vs visitors as time goes on. Visitors are still very important to us, as are societies which are also doing well, but the members are our heart and soul, and are better at repairing divots and pitch marks, for which thank you! David Brimble Director, Hinksey Heights Golf Ltd