Course Manager's Diary

Just like that, spring is here, and we are almost back into competitive golf and the opening of our new 18th hole. As members will have noted from previous reports, it has been a very busy winter for the team, but we are delighted with the condition of the course and very grateful for the recent weather which has helped us greatly in establishing the 18th hole. Last year’s cold and wet spring would have made this almost impossible.

Recent daytime conditions have been pleasant and warm, but the night-time temperatures have remained low with cold east winds which creates very difficult conditions for growing grass. During this time, it is hard to get the different grass types in our greens to grow at a consistent balanced rate. This ultimately leads to the odd bump in the greens, although this will quickly improve. A real positive for us is the fact we have such good grass coverage and minimal disease scarring. We haven’t had to spray a fungicide since the tail end of last summer which is fantastic considering how high disease pressure was through certain periods of the winter months. Throughout summer we will continue with the regular light maintenance to maintain and continue to improve the green surfaces.

Last Stage of Spring Maintenance
All greens, tees and aprons have been fed with Rigby Taylor’s 11-5-5 cold start fertiliser which works very well in cool temperatures. This gives the turf an ‘uplift’ after the cold winter months.

Before the feed was applied to the tees and aprons, they were all dressed with 40 tonnes of sand across both areas combined.

It is important to carry out this work to help these main playing areas free drain and aid the all-round playability. With these areas being firmer it will lead to them having better tolerance to wear and tear which will ultimately lead to better quality conditions.

We will continue to sand dress these areas at the start and end of every season to continue to improve them.

Irrigation System Start-Up
Our irrigation system was re-started a few weeks ago and is working well. We have since carried out some improvements to get the system working more efficiently.
Many pop ups around the course were too deep below the ground meaning the first section of the green was regularly getting little to no water. All these popups were dug out and raisers were put underneath them to get them to the desired height. This will lead to less hand watering of dry spots on these greens and produce better consistency.

We have been regularly watering the area at the start of the 18th hole and also the path leading back to the clubhouse which was hit hard all winter.

Light Greens Maintenance
On 15th April we carried out some light maintenance on our greens to try and improve the playability and plant health.

Work carried out
• Verti-cut all greens to promote new growth and clean up surfaces
• Collected and blew away all remaining debris
• Lightly sand dressed 3 tonnes over the course
• Worked in using drag mat and later brushed to work in lingering sand
• Double cut and rolled before the weekend’s play

We were delighted to receive fantastic feedback from our members, the Lothians and Northumberland teams who competed here in a county match.

Area at the Start of the 18th Hole
In last month’s report we provided an update on the area at the start of the 18th fairway. Late last season we overseeded this area and managed a small amount of grass coverage.

Since then, we have covered this area with a light covering of cores from our greens to leave a much better finish as can be seen in the pictures.

We have since overseeded the area again and two granular feeds have been applied. These have helped to encourage new growth and establish a good body of new grass. Last week we applied a slow-release fertiliser which will sit in the profile and keep supplying the new growth the goodness it needs to become fully established.

We have also put in two stone sumps to help the area become more free draining and help move water off the surface quicker. At the same time, we also have to remember this area has always been a relatively wet part of the course.

New Practice Bays
A massive thank you to members Ally and Ross Bryce for building the wooden frame for our new practice bays. They look fantastic and will be a great addition to the growing list of facilities on offer at Baberton G.C.

Our team have been busy at work putting the sleeper facing, new path in place and all the finishing touches to the new practice facility. This has been a very time-consuming job moving a lot of materials needed for infill. It has been compacted and astro turf has been put over the area to add a nice finish.

We are currently waiting on the custom fit netting to arrive and as soon as it does, they will be fitted immediately to make them available for member use.

18th Hole Updates
Sand Dressing
The new fairway area at the 18th has been sand dressed with 20 tonnes of sand to work on the levels of the area. It is settling in brilliantly and the fairway has recently been dropped in cut height to the same as the rest of the fairways on the course.

The apron has also been sand dressed with around 20 tonnes of sand and we have also dropped the cut height to 11mm, the same as the aprons on the course.

Feeding, Overseeding & Bunkers
The new 18th fairway and apron has been fed with a granular feed for the second time to try and push it on for the opening on the 3rd of May.

The walkway area at the back of the new green has been spiked, fed and overseeded for the second time.

The new practice putting green has been continuously worked on, with feed, dressing and overseeding.

Sand has now been applied to the bunkers.

Golf Course Etiquette
In recent reports we have tried very hard to encourage everyone to respect the golf course and your fellow members. Every single day we see greens that are covered in pitch marks, bunkers that sometimes have little to no effort while raking and trolley marks all over the teeing areas. We have made the decision to remove the divot boxes from the par 3 tees as only a very small number of members are using the divot mix, most of which is going to waste.

Despite constant reminders, the volume of pitch marks on our excellent greens continues to be a massive bug bear for our course team and members. Repairing of pitch marks should be a given not a chore. Please try your best to fix a pitch mark you have made and at least one other.

While raking bunkers try your best to make the sand as level as possible by raking the sand evenly into the centre of the bunkers, not dragging it towards the edges.

Pushing and pulling trolleys across tees has for some reason become the norm at a lot of golf clubs but we do not allow this at Baberton. Our tees are fairly small and take a lot of play throughout the year, so the less additional traffic over them the better. They are a main playing area so please keep trolleys off tees.

While retrieving your golf ball from the hole please don’t fish it out with your putter as this often damages the hole. If you have a ball retriever on the grip of your putter, please take the flagstick out of the hole before removing the ball.

Following these simple steps is very much appreciated and will improve your golf course for everyone.

Preferred Lies
Preferred lies will remain in-play for the 18th hole opening day scramble. As of Sunday 4th of April, preferred lies will no longer be in use.

Now that we are approaching the start of the season, we are trying to get the last of the winter jobs tied up to allow us to focus fully on getting the course where we want it to be. Thankfully the weather has been kinder to us, and we are in a much better place than this time last year, with majority of the course still holding up very well. If Spring is on our side, the course should be in good shape for the start of the season.

Storm Damage
Storm Eowyn left a fair amount of damage across the course, which led to the team spending the best part of two weeks cutting and removing fallen trees around the course.

This impacted heavily on the other jobs we had planned on the course. We lost count of the number of trailer loads that were removed and our team were delighted to see the back of this tree removal.

Course Maintenance
Despite all the lost time dealing with storm damage, the team went above and beyond, working extra hours to ensure we got our maintenance programme completed.

It has been an extremely busy few weeks for our team focusing on our main playing areas (greens, tees & aprons) to prepare them in the best way possible for the start of the season.

Greens
• scarified to 6mm below the surface
• sand dressed with 10 tonnes
• sand brushed in
• cored with a 10mm hollow tine
• sand dressed with 20 tonnes
• sand brushed in
• deep verti-drained to around 8 inches
• sand dressed with 10 tonnes
• brushed in sand
• rolled greens

All this work has been carried out over the space of two weeks and the weather was fantastic which always helps when applying sand dressing. With all this maintenance being carried out early and before the start of the season it allows us to be less intensive with maintenance throughout the season. This means smaller volumes of sand being applied and smaller aeration holes which ultimately reduces the impact to golf and conditions remaining at a high level for the whole summer golf season.

Tees and Aprons
Our tees and aprons have been verti-drained to around 6-inches. This will be followed by being sand dressed, worked in and fed with a granular feed in the coming days. This will help root development, water movement and all-round plant health.

18th Hole Updates
Our new 18th hole is coming along nicely and improving all the time. We are still on track for opening on Saturday 3rd May.

18th Green
The 18th green is in great shape, and we have been working hard to progress the green in its establishment. Recently we have carried out the following work.

• Hollow cored green at 1.5inch spacings with a 10mm hollow core tine
• Sand dressed with around 1.5 tonnes of sand
• Brushed sand into core holes
• Rolled green
• Overseeded with dwarf rye
• Applied cold start granular feed
• Applied profile improvement product

Kress Robot Demo
Thanks to Forth Grass Machinery, we have recently had a demo of a GPS robotic rotary mower. This was perfect timing with how busy we have been recently, and it allowed us to map out the fairway a get the top growth down in height to approximately 30mm. We will gradually work the height of cut down in stages to around 15mm during the height of the summer season. The robot has done a brilliant job with very little weight going across the new turf meaning no tracking of heavy equipment or any substantial damage.

Fairway and Aprons
After recent aeration a month ago, we plan to carry out a second aeration to the fairway and apron areas. This will be followed by a sand dressing to help iron out any imperfections.

Both areas will then be fed with a granular feed to help the establishment of the turf and thicken the areas up to have a good body of grass come the summer months.

Bunkers
All our new bunkers have recently been prepped and turfed and they are looking great. They are now ready for sand to be applied, which we expect to do at the start of April giving a month to settle and compact properly before the hole is opened for play.

18th area before the start of the fairway
The area that has been dug out at the start of the fairway was overseeded at the tail end of last year. Although it looks unsightly at the moment this area will quickly improve as the season progresses. We will continue to work on this area, we will be stone picking, overseeding and feeding to help push it on in the coming weeks. However, we expect it will remain as GUR for most, if not all, of the season.

Tee Re-alignment
In recent weeks we have slightly realigned and widened the 18th tee to ensure it aligns well with the new fairway and green. The tee will now point towards the main landing area.

Drainage
All the drains have been working brilliantly, and we are delighted with how the hole is progressing.

However, during the construction we were aware of a few areas in the apron that could potentially become gathering points for water and understood that gully pots may be required to ensure quick water movement through heavy periods of rain.

We decided to review this over the winter months to see if any further action was required. We will now install gully pots through the low points of the apron at the front of the green to provide additional help to remove any surface water quickly during these periods of heavy rain. This will improve all round playability and quality of the area.

When the hole does open, please be mindful the hole is still at a very early stage of its development. It will take some time to fully settle in and become established like the other holes on the course, which have had many years of being finely manicured.

New Practice Putting Green
The new practice putting green has established a very good body of grass despite the challenge of establishing it from seed in the winter months. It’s had its first form of aeration, been solid tined to around 2 inches and its structure has held together very well with no pulling up of the green which is a promising sign and shows the turf is starting to develop a good root structure.

• Solid tined to 2 inches
• Overseeded with a mixture of bents and dwarf rye
• Sand dressed with just under a tonne of sand worked in using dew brush
• Fed with a cold start granular feed
• Applied profile improvement product

This new green will take time to fully establish and be ready for use, so at the start of the season the old 18th green will be used as a practice putting green. Expectation at this point is that the new green will not be open until mid-summer.

At the moment we are still considering how best to manage use of the old 18th green as both a practice putting green, and as a short game practice area. We will keep members updated on this and as to the timing of the permanent move of the new putting green.

Practice Bays
The materials for our 3 new practice bays have arrived and we will soon construct a new wooden enclosure for them. This will give them protection from the kind of high winds that put paid to the last set of nets. These are being constructed on a newly prepared area of flat ground on the hill up towards the old 18th green. We’ll keep members updated with specific timing around these works and when the nets will be available for use.

As this is our first report of 2025, Happy New Year to all our members, we hope you all had a great festive period with family and friends.

December was a wet end to the year with approximately 77mm of rain, although with a combination of roped off areas and extensive aeration work across the main playing areas, the course has coped very well. January started with another heavy batch of rain soon followed by a light covering of snow and ice. In the few days after this we had another covering of snow and freezing temperatures which led to the course being closed for over two weeks.

Thankfully we saw a dramatic rise in the temperatures, although a combination of freezing ground conditions and nowhere for the water to go saw large volumes of water and ice on the course.

With conditions being so cold the frost took the best part of a week to fully thaw on some areas of the course. It is particularly important during these times to protect the greens as root shear has long term implications and is very damaging to the health of our greens. This process happens when we have a deep ground frost, and it begins to thaw leaving our greens frozen underneath and soft in the top part of the profile. Any traffic over the greens during these times would lead to root shear caused by the movement in the turf with the frozen profile just below meaning there is no give in the ground which results in the roots being broken away from the turf at a very shallow depth, leaving our greens unstable and could massively damage the plant health.

Tree Limbing and Tidy Up
During the cold snap it wasn’t all bad. This offered us a fantastic opportunity to cut back low hanging branches which was impacting the movement of equipment and playability. With somewhere between 40-50 trailer loads being removed off the course it has made a dramatic difference.

The snow and frozen ground provided perfect conditions to drive over the course with minimal traffic damage.

18th Hole Redevelopment Updates
A lot of our focus while the weather has been onside has been pushing on our new 18th hole with various tasks being conducted.

All four of the new bunkers have now been lined with resin bases. All bunkers were completed in three days thanks to our team working on late and some great weather to allow the bases to set.

18th Green Maintenance
We have been regularly cutting and rolling the new 18th green, working on the levels and firmness of the green to allow it to settle. Both the 18th and putting green were fed with a slow-release granular fertiliser so it continues to supply the necessary nutrition through the remaining winter months.

The 18th green has also recently been top dressed and had its first aeration since it has been re-laid. This was done with a 5/8th solid tine at two-inch spacings and a 3-inch depth. It is important to push the green on early and conducting this solid tine will increase root development and allow air and water movement through the profile. The sand dressing will help level out any low points on the green with all sand we worked in by hand using brushes. It has since been rolled.

Our new putting green is starting to have an incredibly good body of grass given it has been established battling the elements of a Scottish winter.

18th Fairway and Apron
The 18th fairway has had its first cut and has been shaped up to roughly where we would like it to be for the upcoming season, although we will no doubt make some adjustments along the way. The fairway has also been deep Verti-drained to around 7-inches to help with water movement and root development.

The apron area has been solid tined to around 4 inches to help the roots start chasing. The area has also been cut to encourage the turf to thicken up and increase sward density.

We will continue this work at given opportunities through the winter months to push on the 18th hole which will increase the quality and playability of all turf areas come the opening of the hole for which we cannot wait.

18th Hole Tree Planting
A massive thank you to Mike Andrew and a number of volunteers who have helped plant the best part of 100 trees along the new 18th hole.

The first batch were planted up the right of the 18th to help further develop the protection to the neighbouring park. The tree line will be grown in as wild rough to create a frame up that side and also separate the practice area from the new 18th hole.

Since then, Course Manager, Course Convenor and our tree specialist Mike Andrew considered planting more trees to create a frame of the hole and divide the 18th hole from the 16th teeing areas, short game practice area and also closing off the view of the car park over time. The work has since been completed and what a job all the volunteers have done, thank you all.

Huge thanks to Mike for his expertise and time.

It will be great to see them all grow and become an integral part of a memorable finishing hole.

Storm Eowyn
We have recently felt the full impact of storm Eowyn, losing multiple trees and several others being snapped or damaged. The once in a generation storm will take our team some time to fully recover from.

On a positive note, all our main playing areas are damage free and once all debris and trees are removed, we should have no long-term effects of the storm.

Our tractor blower was going nonstop in the immediate days after the storm, along with backpack blowers for greens and bunkers to tidy up the mess that was left behind.

Now we are on top of the general tidiness of the course our attention will turn to cutting up and removing fallen trees from the course. Please stay away from any damaged or fallen trees for your own safety. Thank you everyone and I hope everyone is safe and well after the horrendous storm.

Just like that it is December already, where has the year gone? It has been a very busy year for our team and it’s one we will remember with fond memories. From a very successful Club Championships to hosting the Lothians Matchplay Championships for the first time since 1949. The feedback we have received from both members and visitors has been fantastic and makes all the early starts and late nights worthwhile knowing the results are so greatly appreciated.

Thankfully November’s weather was fairly kind to us with below average rainfall for the month (29mm). Things changed in December with a very wet start. In the first nine days of the month, we recorded over 30mm of rainfall leading to some areas of the course becoming extremely wet underfoot, and a closure on Saturday 7th. It will stay wet in some areas for a time so please take care on the course and select appropriate footwear for the winter conditions.

All course protection ropes are now out on the course, please don’t move any ropes unless it’s interfering with your shot – in which case please replace it afterwards. On occasion we have noticed that the ropes have been moved, please refrain from doing so, our course team will move the ropes as and when required.

Autumn Leaf Blowing
As much as Autumn is a lovely time of year to look at the trees and see the colour changes, it’s a terrible time for golf and a challenge for our team to keep on top of leaf blowing. This is a constant battle for around eight weeks to try and keep the course as tidy as possible. Thankfully we are now almost at the end of the Autumn fall.

Cutting Practices
Due to the mild weather at the start of November cutting was still ongoing to keep ahead of the unseasonal growth.

The height of cut has been increased in all areas to protect the course through the winter months.

All cutting tasks will still be ongoing throughout the winter as and when the weather allows to keep playing conditions as good as we possibly can.

18th Hole update
Very soon after the new 18th green had been laid, we quickly started pushing the green on with the start of the 2025 season being our main focus.

As we highlighted in the final 18th hole redevelopment update, the green was sprayed with a fungicide to try and reduce disease pressure. It was overseeded with a mixture of dwarf rye and bent grasses to try and recover disease scars and struggling areas.

It was then sand dressed with 1.5 tonnes of pro golf 20 sand, which was hand brushed in to low points and joins of the turf.

Finally, an organic granular feed was applied to help aid recovery of the turf and this was watered in.

We have since been regularly rolling the turf to work on the smoothness of the green this will continue right through winter. The green has now had its first cut (at the height of 9mm) since being laid. This will gradually decrease as we come to the start of next season, although it is very important not to go too low too early as the green isn’t yet as smooth as the other greens on the course, therefore we risk scalping the turf which wouldn’t recover until well into next season. We have been regularly rolling the new practice putting green with the hand mowers. The new seed is starting to come through nicely.
The apron immediately around the green has also had its first cut at the height of 14mm.

As you will all be aware the path leading back to the clubhouse when finishing your round is becoming very muddy with the volume of use. Sadly, we have looked into all other options and this is the only safe route off the golf course for the time being. Please stick to the rubber mats.

Please can I also ask for everyone to keep off all new turf. We are still frequently seeing people walking all over the new turf. It is important we allow the turf to properly take which will speed up the establishment of the turf in the long run.

New 18th bunkers
The new bunkers on the 18th hole and practice area are starting to take shape.
We have created ledges so the bunkers have a defined shape and a ledge for the resin base to bind into which will leave a flat surface for turf to finish off the bunker edge.

All bunkers have been drained. Our team have been busy working out type 1 hardcore and back filling drainage lines with pea gravel.

We then went on to compacting the type 1 base to leave a sturdy base for our resin to sit on.

In the coming weeks when the temperatures allow, we will be applying the resin base to the bunkers which will create the base ready for sand to be applied.

Greens aeration
With recent wet weather and high disease pressure we have carried out some aeration to our greens. It is very important to keep airflow and water moving through the profile and off the surface to keep them in a healthy condition.
This work causes minimal disruption to the greens. we are going a depth of around 4-inches, at a 2-inch spacing. All greens were rolled soon after the work being completed.

This will be our last aeration work until January when we will be verti-draining our greens to help relieve compaction at a deeper depth.

From all of our Course Team, we hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!

October has been a very busy month for our team with a lot of turf refinement and aeration work being carried out over all main playing areas of the course. This is a very important time of the season for us to try and strengthen conditions on the course before we hit the depths of the winter months.

Throughout October we have seen very mild conditions which means we are seeing a fair amount of growth across the course which is great for the recovery from the recent maintenance programme, but it also means regular cutting practices are still ongoing. We are also currently battling the leaves at this time of year, so we are blowing on a daily basis. Sadly, our tractor mounted blower is off the road at the moment, this is our only large-scale piece of equipment for leaf control, so it’s been hard work without it. We are hopeful it will be repaired soon although the replacement part required is taking some time to arrive. Massive thanks to Greentech for allowing us to borrow their tractor mounted blower in the meantime.

Maintenance stage 1
The first stage of our Autumn maintenance work was scarifying all greens, aprons and tees. Scarifying units were set at a depth of 12mm below the surface, breaking through and removing organic matter from our main playing areas. All waste material was blown in to piles, as can be seen in the pictures, and removed to leave a clean surface ready for sand application.
Greens were dressed with 10 tonnes of sand and worked in to the scarifying lines to help eat into that organic matter layer.

Tees and aprons were also sand dressed to improve playability and turf health.

All scarifying and dressing was completed over a period of two weeks which was brilliant as it’s a very time-consuming task with a lot of mess made in the process.

Maintenance stage 2
The second stage of maintenance was coring the greens. These cores were around 1.5-inch long at 1.5-inch spacings.

All cores this year have been re-used on what will be our new putting green. This will create a small thatch layer which will aid with quick establishment of the new green. Although the new practice green will be seeded, as the cores grow through and establish it will create a more consistent surface to replicate the greens we find out on the course.

After green coring was complete, we applied another 20 tonnes of sand to fill the core holes as much as possible. This sand was worked in first using a drag mat. Afterwards, when the sand was dry, we went on to brush the sand in to the holes.

Stage two of our tees and aprons maintenance was to solid tine them with a 15mm solid tine. They were then dragmatted to work the sand into the holes.

Maintenance stage 3
The 3rd stage of maintenance to the greens was a deep verti-drain to around 9 inches with a 13mm solid tine followed by another dressing over the greens (15 tonnes). This creates airspace deep into the surfaces which will have many long-term benefits; better drainage, root structure and all-round better plant health just to name a few.

Tees have been deep verti-drained to around 7inch.

Maintenance stage 4
All greens were overseeded with a blend of straight bents grass to help continue to improve the quality of the grasses in our greens. Over time this will give our greens a better tolerance to turf diseases, better playability and ball roll which is what we aim to keep improving.

After overseeding was complete we moved on to applying our last granular feed of the year. The greens are responding very well to the 4-4-20 feed applied.

Maintenance stage 5
We have recently carried out Verti-draining of our fairways with a 20mm tine at a depth of 6-inch with a 6-inch spacing. This work will improve soil porosity, allowing air flow and moisture to work through the profile.

We have recently had a demo of the John deere 5075e and we felt it would be best to put it to the test while verti-draining our fairways.
We have also had a demo of an Iseki 6507 which we used while verti-draining tees.

Winter Rules
As of Monday 4th November, we have now moved to Winter Rules and a revised course layout for this winter. We politely remind all members that fairway mats are now mandatory, and we ask those playing social golf to also use them in the first cut of rough to aid with course protection. Members will also note extensive roped off areas this winter for the purposes of course protection with the aim of ensuring the best quality of course we can come the spring.