Work on 16 & 18

Work is continuing on pollarding trees on the 16th and new trees going in to give a better definition to how the hole will look; Askham Bryan College have pollarded some of the Poplars for us, this is a great chance for their students to get some practical experience and helps us too!

Trees pollarded by Askham Bryan College students on the right hand side of 16

 This has been a great opportunity to move trees and plant out more, there is a good mix of trees going in with maple, rowan, silver birch, oak, alder, beech & lime trees being planted.

Digging out ready for planting...

Pines being moved from the left of the 18th green

Another pine tree being moved

The copse between the 16th and the practice ground taking shape

Larger trees are being planted to give better definition, this beech tree could grow to 80 -100 feet tall & live for up to 300 years, so it will see us out!!

Welcome Back!

Due to the inclement weather before Christmas there was not a lot to report on the blog, but now we're into the new year things are starting to move again.

We have even managed to cut the greens once this year!

...the next picture shows one of the copses having the lower branches removed...

& we've verti-drained the greens to get some air into the roots

 George has been carrying out servicing on some of the machines whilst they are not being used...

and we have deep raked the bunkers after all the rain compacted the sand.

New 16th hole tee

It was a foggy day when we started to build the new tee for the 16th hole but work is progressing nicely

It may be cold & frosty but the work still goes on...

...and this is the view down the 16th from behind the tee, there's still some work to be done but, with good weather we'll be playing from here next season!

Last week & This...

Last week we started to trim all the low branches in the copses to give golfers the chance to play their ball if they should happen to find themselves there, the picture shows George lopping some of the branches.

Today we have started to make the changes, as published, on the 16th hole, we have started to fell some of the Poplars, which are coming to the end of their lifespan. The picture below shows the amount of rot in the middle of the tree after it was felled, looks like we've been lucky it didn't fall on its own!

Clean & Place

In order to make it clear where the fairway finishes and the rough starts we are cutting the edges of the fairways to give better definition, this should avoid all those "is this fairway or rough?" debates...

This week

This week so far has been a good week for getting on the course, although it's a bit damp underfoot. 

First Picture is of Julian carrying out the thankless task of leaf collecting, at this time of year it seems to be like painting the Forth Bridge, you get to the end and start again!

We are also busy cutting greens, they've all been cut today for the midweek medal and all 18 holes are in play...

...the greens are in excellent condition for the time of year and we hope to be playing on them for some time to come. All the hard work during the season, verti-cutting, top dressing etc. has really paid off

Drainage

With every course in York closed today it's a good opportunity to show how effective the drainage is now on the course, the top 2 pictures show the cross ditch on the 8th hole at 7:30 this morning. The botttom 2 pictures are looking across to the 9th green, again the picture on the left was taken at 7:30 this morning, the hole was completely waterlogged. The picture on the right was taken around 2pm, it's amazing how quickly it's drained away...

9th hole this morning, taken through the rain...

...and this afternoon, with the sun shining