Hole 10 Update

Last week we finally got the turf laid on the 10th green. The sod had been cut lifted from the old 11th green on the 5th October and had been sitting on plastic sheeting for the past 8 weeks. It was a huge relief to get it laid at long last. Hopefully it will enjoy its new surroundings more than its temporary home in the valley next to the reservoir!

















All bunker revetting is now complete also. The earthworks contractor has top-soiled the entire area and the whole area is being given its final prep today before turfing of the surround and approach begins tomorrow.

Hole 11 Tee Construction

The new 11th tees have been constructed and are now ready for turfing this week. The surfaces have been extended at the back by around 5 metres and at the front by around 3 metres. We now have around 370m2 of teeing area split between the white and yellow surfaces. Both surfaces have been realigned and now point squarely towards the target area on the fairway. The trees on the left of the image below will be trimmed back in the coming weeks to give an improved view of the left edge of the fairway.

Turfing Hole 11 Approach

This week we took delivery of 1600m2 of turf from our supplier in the UK. The material has been laid on the surround and approach are on the 11th hole.

The first of two loads arrive

Course Walk

A course walk to examine the changes to holes 10, 11 and 12 will take place on Friday 9th December. Any member who is interested in seeing first hand the progress so far on the project is invited to meet me outside the Rangers' office at 1pm on Friday 9th December. The walk will also take place on Saturday 10th December, also at 1pm, for anyone unavailable to make it on the Friday.

Hole 10 Progress Update

The shaping of the green complex on the 10th hole is well underway. The new rootzone is being added to the green and the three new fairway bunkers are now in place, one of which has been revetted. This hole should be ready for turfing to commence around Monday 5th December.

Green complex with two bunkers left side

 Right side fairway bunker

 Left side fairway bunkers

Shaping Hole 11

Our earthworks team from MJ Abbott Ltd have now finished all the contouring and shaping work on the 11th hole. We now have seven new bunkers, a new green complex, adjustments to the left side of the fairway from 100 yards out all the way to the green and a new white and yellow teeing ground. Turf for these areas is due to be delivered on Tuesday with the work expected to be completed by the end of next week.

Deep Tine Aeration Using Verti-Drain

This week we are using the Verti-Drain machine to punch holes in the surface of the greens. The machine has been set up to give us holes that are half an inch in diameter,10 inches deep and with a two inch gap between each. For the first time this year we have split each green in two, one half of each green was verti drained three weeks ago and now that recovery from that operation has taken place, we are moving onto the other half of each green. This process is designed to ensure that hole locations can be kept on comparatively smooth areas of the greens all the time. A short video of the machine in action on the 16th green is shown below.

To find out more about why we do this work to the greens, click on the label "aeration" below.

Hole 10 Preparation

With the shaping work on the 11th fairway areas progressing well, some of the earthworks team are now moving onto the area at the 10th green and 11th tee to begin the top soil removal and clay excavation works. When the clay soil is gone considerable reshaping work will take place to improve the contouring of this green and increase the connectivity with the surrounding land.

 Clay removal on 10th green

The 11th tee is set to be longer and wider

Hole 12 Complete

A day and a half of hard work saw the course team complete the turfing work on the surround and approach of hole 12. About 1250 square metres of material was laid in total. The 200 square metres that is left over from the delivery yesterday will be used to make start on the collar of the 11th.

New Turf Delivery

Today we received a delivery of 1440 square metres of pure fescue turf. We plan to use this material on the surround and approach on hole 12 with any left over being used on hole 11. The turf has had quite a journey to get here, it was grown on the turf farm of specialist sports turf supplier County Turf in North Lincolnshire where it was cut and loaded onto pallets first thing on Monday morning.

Our new turf growing happily in Lincolnshire

It arrived in Portsmouth in time to make the overnight ferry to Jersey and was then delivered up to La Moye at 11am today. The whole process took a little over 24hrs which means the course team have around another 48hrs to get the turf on the ground before significant degradation of the material begins.

Unloading the turf at La Moye

 

The first 500m2 of turf in place on the 12th