From the Course Committee

What’s happening on the 14^th?

You may have recently seen a pattern of white dots sprayed on the 14^th fairway within about 100m of the green. These dots trace two lines across the fairway from the left near the prunus tree at 100m to the right about 40m closer to the green and then through the rough parallel to the right edge of the fairway and finally across the path to the excavated drain behind the 15^th tee. This is the path for a burn proposed to be cut across the fairway to overcome the serious drainage problems we have experienced on the 14^th over winter. This burn will be similar in form to the one that crosses the 4^th fairway.

Although winter has been very wet, a considerable part of our problem this year has related to drains under the fairway that have been in position for many years and are no longer working efficiently. This has led to the Course staff opening the drains behind the 15^th tee in an attempt to clear the water more efficiently. Work on a smaller scale has been carried out on the low side of the 16^th fairway at the outlets of the existing drains on this hole. The rate of flow from these outlets indicates that these drains have also become ineffective.

To overcome the problem on the 16^th between the road and the green, it is planned to conduct the water from the burn through a spoon drain similar to that at the bottom of the hill on the 9^th fairway to the low-lying area near the Heysen Trail below the 16^th green.

New agricultural drains will be run into the 14^th burn and the 16^th spoon drain to replace the drains that have been ineffective this winter.

Work on the construction of the burn will occur early in the new year.

What is happening on the 5^th and 8^th?

You will observe that the line of cut of the fairways on these holes has changed a little. This is so at about 40m from the green on the right of the 5^th fairway and between the 150m and 100m marks on the left of the 8^th. Along with the additional tree planting on the 8^th, these steps have been taken to challenge the long-hitters to be a little more accurate with their drives on these holes. Planting to the right of the bunker on the 11^th has been done for the same purpose.

Work hours for the Course Staff

You may find that the course staff are hard at work on the course from 6am now that daylight saving is with us. This allows them to work efficiently in the cool of the morning and means that they generally complete their day’s work shortly after 2pm. They are to be congratulated on the way they have managed the course over winter and the speed with which the are restoring it to good playing conditions now that spring has arrived.

 Chris Senior

Chairman