We've had a very busy winter on the golf course and our Greenkeepers have made excellent progress on the winter plan which we showed back in Autumn 2015.

Bunker Renovation

Over the course of the colder months Mark and his team have been working hard on the bunkers, and we're delighted to say we have exceeded the original plans that we made:

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	Planned	Achieved
Bunkers Renovated	19	23
Bunkers Topped with New Sand	8	10
Bunkers Topped with Old Good Sand	5	11

Overall we have managed work on 12 more bunkers than we had originally planned - a total of 44 bunkers - which has made a massive improvement to the course and hasn't gone unnoticed by members of the club. Mark and his team have received a lot of recognition over the past few months and it is fully deserved.

Lakes

One of the winter projects involved improving the presentation of the lakes on the course, as many had been overtaken by unwanted weeds and algae, so we put in a plan to physically remove a lot of these, with the idea of long-term continued maintenance to keep the lakes looking presentable, as originally intended.

When removing bulrushes which have naturally spread within the lakes we have been conscious that they encourage wildlife in our lakes and we did not want to prevent this, so with that in mind we decided to keep half of the bulrushes on the second, fourth and eleventh lakes on the non-playing sides. On the sixth lake we decided that all of the weeds should be removed from this as the whole lake involves play, so that was the only lake that we have cleaned completely.

Practice Putting Green

The new practice putting green has received a lot of use over the winter months and we're very happy with the way it has coped when you consider that it takes a few years for a green to fully establish. Although there are still some slight imperfections with the surface we are very pleased with how it is performing. We are planning on installing irrigation for the green in the next few months, so that it can be irrigated every night through the summertime.

Driving Range

As planned we have installed new mats, new nets and targets on the driving range (as well as 6,000 new range balls) and these have greatly improved the appearance and quality of the range.

You may notice that one of the three new practice nets (the red one) disappeared shortly after it was put out on the range, this is because it was badly damaged in high winds within a fortnight of installation, so it has been away for repair to both the structure and the canvas itself. This will shortly be back on the range and it will be as good as new!

Competition Tees on Holes 6 and 10

The new competition tees on holes 6 and 10 have faired well through the (very) wet months, and should kick on nicely in 2016. Can we please ask that people don't bring their trolleys onto these surfaces (or any tee for that matter!), as this affects the presentation and wear of the tees. Thank you.

New Twitter Account @BCG_Greenies

We have set up a new Twitter account for the Greenkeeping team at Burstwick. Follow us at @BCG_Greenies for updates on what's going on around the course, and what is planned for the future!

Blue Stakes on Holes 3-11

In the coming weeks we will be removing the blue stakes from holes 3 to 11, meaning that there will be no blue staked areas remaining at Burstwick! Many of these areas will still have individually staked trees (as with holes 1-2, 12-18) and players must take relief from these individually, rather than relief from the full copse. We are going to trim around the tree bottoms before we remove the stakes, so that players are able to find their golf balls (and we will be doing this on the other nine holes too, shortly after).

If you have any questions about this, such as how to take relief, please talk to a member of staff.

Course Furniture

As many people know, we bought 4 new benches with the money raised from the Spring Open Am-Am. We have not had the conditions to put these out yet, as we are going to concrete a base for each bench and secure down. Hopefully we will be getting these out on the course in the next couple of months.

Conclusion

Whilst we're very happy with the progress we have achieved over the winter our attention now turns to maintaining the course through the summer and we are sure that in 2016 you will see the course in the best state it has ever been!