The Duke’s Green Keeping

Hi everyone

I have stated in previous posts that autumn is here and grass growth is slowing down. I think someone needs to tell the grass! Due to the really mild weather we are experiencing at the moment the growth seems to have picked up and doesn’t show many signs of slowing down again. For us grass geeks this can be a real problem as mild and damp conditions at this time of year can lead to disease. If the disease was to occur and the temperature was to suddenly drop we would experience scarring. These scars would last through out the winter months until the grass begins to grow again next year.  But don’t worry, I have a few tricks up my sleeve to stop this from happening…all part of managing the course!

The past few weeks we have been mowing down some of our long rough. The long rough is part of the look and design of The Duke’s however we must continue to mow the rough in the winter or there will be many lost balls! This task is not carried out during the summer as it would potentially damage the ecosystem of wildlife and wild flowers that thrive in these areas.  Some of our golfers have been following behind our mower hunting for lost balls just like seagulls following a trawler!

As we are now down to our winter staff, jobs such as bunker raking become much larger and tend to take up more time. Still, we keep on smiling…as Craig demonstrates below.

If you are picking up your clubs this week then have a look at Ayden’s latest golf lesson on YouTube. Always really handy to have a quick review of your set up, you never know you it might just help to get your handicap down!

I’d also like to say a big congratulations to the team at Kingsbarns for picking up the Golf Course of the Year award at the Golf Tourism Scotland awards last week. You can see all the winners at the Golf Tourism Scotland site. Well done boys!

‘Till next time.

Derek