The traditional british summer...almost

Firstly I would like to apologise for lack of blog updates lately. The summer has been a very busy period for all of us at the club. I will endeavour to be back to my blogging self from now on. 

In this blog I will just give an overview of what's been happening lately out on the golf course. 

This summer we have seen an almost normal (if that still exists) summer. This has been a mix of lots of sunny days with high tempratures and high periods of rain. 

Interestingly we have had more thunderstorms this year than I can remember and with the thunder comes higher levels of nitrogen in the rain. Normally rain brings 0.25kg of Nitrogen per hectare per inch of rain but when it thunders this figure goes up to 1.25kg N per ha, per inch. This is a huge increase and what we see out on the golf course is new life, new growth! 

Below shows our growth rates so far this year. You will see how high it's been since June with the mix in the weather but we also started off out of the blocks.

This has meant a lot of cutting and applications of growth regulator to help keep the course in good condition. 

What still amazes me about London clay (our soil type) is just how quickly it dries out. We can go from this :

To having to do this within a few days

And we have even needed to get out early to try and keep some areas (the ones we can reach) alive with H2O. See below. 

From extreme heat to thundery showers has meant a lot of our time has either been spent adding water or repairing rain damage. 

The story of our summer is nearly over. I can't believe finals day is this weekend. It's been one of many highs and great things achieved. The South England ladies county, county matches, winning club teams, successful tournaments, swing for sammy making over £100,000! increased membership, staff success and improved playing surfaces. I can't wait for the next summer to come as we have alot of work planned in between. This work will build on this year and raise the bar again.  

I will be blogging some more to catch up over the coming days.

Matt