Week commencing Monday 14th September, contractors will be onsite carrying out essential work on the course. The practice putting green will be closed all week whilst drainage is installed. Increasing levels of ponding, as seen through most of last winter, has made this installation the priority job in this coming winter's course development programme. Our annual verti-draining of the fairways will hopefully take the first three days of the week to complete. In order for the work to go ahead safely, one or two holes will be shut on each of the days..... Monday 14th, Tuesday 15th and Wednesday 16th September. We will be carrying on with renovation work to all areas of the course whilst we continue to have favourable temperatures and moisture. Following arguably the hottest summer on record we aim to bring back to life our fairways, which could not be supplemented by in-house irrigation. Alongside the verti-draining programme, liquid applications of feed and wetter will be used to encourage recovery to the fairways. We have already verti-cut and overseeded the greens, a contractor will come in to deep tine the putting surfaces. In the meantime, various liquid applications will be applied in preparation for the winter months. Once we get further natural recovery to tees, a granular fertiliser will be applied. As we transition into the cooler months, further course development projects will commence. These projects include bunker renovations. Within these renovations it will be our aim to reduce heights to the stepping in and out of each bunker. This is a practice that we have carried out in recent years, an example being the new bunker renovations on the first half of the 1st/10th hole. The front right greenside bunker at the 4th green is a perfect example of a bunker needing a reduced height in the enter/exit step. A more detailed programme of our schedule will be released before the end of October. As always, Darren, Reece and I are happy to answer all course related questions. On a final note, I would like to wish Jeanette a long and happy retirement with huge thanks for looking after the greenstaff (and friends) these past few years. And a big welcome to our new F&B Manager Nick. I've been fortunate enough to have had a couple of chats with him already and can't wait to see his ideas come to fruition. Tony Rimmer Course Manager