Lockdown 2

I usually start moaning about the weather so as soon as Boris made his announcement about golf being closed for a month you knew we where going to have a dry warm November. Perfect for us considering last month but very very frustrating for you golfers!!! The situation at the moment in the greens department is that two lads have been furloughed leaving three of us to do work on the course. The day the course was closed (Thursday) we got on the greens with the air2g2 followed behind with the verti drain going down 9″. The air2g2 blows compressed air into the rootzone causing soil fractures that allow air/water movement whilst also relieving compaction. The verti drain creates deep aeration, doing very similar to the air2 but also allowing gaseous exchange. We are only cutting once a week, this is to keep stress to an absolute minimum but also keeping the holes open for as long as we can. The greens will be fed Thursday.

Due to the weather being good we’ve been able to crack on with work on the course. We are currently putting a new path to run beside the 6th ditch, raising the 7th path whilst jetting the drains in the area to aid drainage, creating a hard standing beside the 10th winter tee and raising the path coming off the 16th fairway. We have taken the tops off the 15 and 17 comp tees, we always have a problem with them drying out during summer so we are going to add some soil to the rootzone to hold more moisture during summer. The spoil from the area was used to fill in the fairway bunker on the 16th. We have also marked off numerous dead trees on the course that will be removed during winter. Thanks for reading, please follow us on twitter @ashtonleagreens, this will give you daily reports on the state of the course and updates of what we are doing. We also have a facebook page, search for Ashton and Lea greens. Please like the page and ask your golfing friends to like the page, make them aware of the good things we are doing and producing. Any concerns or opinions on what we are doing please contact us directly on greens-ashtonlea@hotmail.com. Thanks for reading, Mark Shuttleworth ( Deputy Head Greenkeeper)