After the heat of last weekend the staff came in on Monday to greens that were just beginning to brown off, so the focus early on was to get water into them. This included hand watering the top of the slopes, which are quick to burn. We then had 6.5 mm of rain on Tuesday.

The green speed on Friday was exactly on target, at 9 foot. It has only fallen below target once since early May.

The other noteworthy points from the week are not really golf-related: players out early-ish in the mornings will have met the abundance of horse-flies that these warm and humid conditions encourage, and we’ve had problems with the turf iron, which developed battery difficulties. These were replaced under warranty by the supplier but there was another fault that resulted in it being carted away early in the week. It’s back in service now but during the earlier part of the week the greens couldn’t be rolled.

Holiday season is nearly upon us. Gavin is going to be short-staffed for much of the next few weeks.

Course committee