New Range Sponsor - Brewin Dolphin

Brewin Dolphin  have kindly sponsored the new golf balls on the driving range. Pictured above are La Moye GC Secretary/Manager Alastair Mackenzie, La Moye GC Captain Mike Lotherington, Mark Miles and Nick Browning from Brewin Dolphin and La Moye GC Course and Competition Chairman Peter Garnier during the hand over of the new balls.

Fertiliser Spreading

If you have been on the course today or plan to visit tomorrow you may notice a rather "organic" smell coming from the turf. Today we have been spreading a poultry litter based fertiliser product on a number of areas around the course to help boost turf health and encourage growth in high wear spots. Thankfully the smell will fade quickly but spare a thought for Andrew and Phil who had the unenviable task of spreading the stuff all day today!

Bird Box Survey

We have 18 bird boxes situated in trees and on some of the buildings around the golf course complex. In a survey carried out last month we found that 10 of the 18 boxes showed signs of being inhabited. In those 10, chicks could be seen or heard in 5 of the boxes.

Irrigation Priorities

We are currently experiencing exceptionally dry weather conditions. Since 1st March our weather station has recorded only 32mm of rainfall, which represents less than 25% of the average for this period. These dry conditions have very often been accompanied by sunny and breezy weather, this has meant that we have been heavily reliant on our irrigation system to deliver the water required to keep the turf healthy.

We have been losing between 20 and 30mm of moisture from the turf each week from a process called evapo-transpiration. Although this does not sound too bad, to replace 25mm of water across the whole course means that we must apply around 1 million gallons of water. Consequently, we have been abstracting large quantities of water from our boreholes to replenish the water pumped from our reservoir.

In recent days it has been noted that the yield from the boreholes has decreased to the extent that we have been pumping water out of the reservoir and onto the golf course faster than we have been able to replace it. You may have noticed the low water levels in the reservoir recently whilst standing on the 14th tee. This is obviously an unsustainable situation and as we are still in the first half of the season with potentially a lot more dry weather ahead of us, we must now adjust our irrigation output to a sustainable level.

Currently two thirds of the water we apply is to fairways so clearly this is the area where the greatest savings can be made. It makes sense to prioritise the watering of greens, tees and approaches whilst reducing the amount of water the fairways receive. Instead of watering fairways every night, from now and until the next significant rainfall, we will water these areas on 2 or 3 occasions each week. This will ensure we will have enough water for the priority areas for the remainder of what could be an extraordinarily dry season.