It’s been a while since we shared our plans for the course so here’s an update on what’s going on at Burstwick.

Expanding the Team

We are expanding the Greens Team at Burstwick and are looking forward to seeing the difference this can make on the golf course! Previously we have had four full time greenkeepers and one part time in summer, down to two full time greenkeepers and two part time in winter. We are now able to expand this to five full time and one part time in both summer and winter! An increase of roughly 40 hours a week labour extra in summer and 60 hours a week in winter.

Greens

We have been very hard at work and investing heavily into our greens this summer, including spraying various tonics, biostimulants, surfactants, wetting agents, liquid aerators and growth regulators onto the surfaces, increased verticutting, needle tining topdressing and more. All of this work is to get the greens healthier and more resistant to disease and wear.

We recently had our second set of soil test results back from the lab, a year after having the first set and we can definitely see an improvement in the nutrients and make-up of the rootzone, but there’s still plenty of work to do.

The biggest change we have seen, due to the work we have done and the new Quadrop irrigation dosing system, is a big reduction in organic matter, from 40 per cent to 26 per cent. The ideal number is around 12-15 per cent, so we still have some way to go, but it’s great to see the work starting to pay off already.

You will have noticed disease starting to come back in, especially hole 9 which is particularly bad. We have continued applying treatments on the greens for the soil health and despite this disease outbreaks, things are better and will continue to improve. We are sticking to the plan and are asking our members to have faith that over the next couple of years we will start to see this less and less, until we have very little disease at all.

Bunkers

Our bunkers have been a little neglected over the last year due to COVID regulations giving golfers preferred lies, as we made a conscious decision to take some labour away from the bunkers and put it into our greens, tees and fairways, but because of that, the bunkers began to look very shabby. We are now happy to say that we have had a team working on the bunkers over the in August completely de-weeding them, moving and topping up sand, and they look and play far, far better and we intend to keep them this way!

Tees

Tees have seen a good improvement and are looking the best they ever have thanks to an increased mowing regime and also we are consistently moving the tee markers three times a week instead of once or twice, to spread wear.

Driving Range

We’ve just ordered another 12,000 range balls which are due to be deliver mid December, and also have recently replaced three matts that were getting worn out. We are looking at ways to continue improving the Range and will are exploring several ideas on this subject.

New Machinery Round Up

In the past 18 months we have invested massively in new machinery for the club, here’s a round up of what we have added to our fleet:

• John Deere 4049R compact tractor

• Toro 6700D fairway mower

• John Deere Gator utility vehicle

• Vale TD800 top dresser

• Sweep and Fill greens brush

• Clubcar Handyman greenkeepers’ buggy

• Tru Turf greens iron

• Sisis TM1000 scarifier

• Sisis Multislit greens slitter

• BMS greens spiker

And we’re not finished yet! We still have other upgrades we would like to make; they won’t be quite in as quick succession as these were made, but they will happen!

Maintenance Plans Moving Forward

From now on each year we will be doing our summer greens maintenance in August rather than September or October so that the greens can recover quicker and it puts them in good stead heading into autumn. We have also arranged this year to hire an overseeding machine to overseed all the greens and fill in any old disease marks before the winter starts, followed by more tonics, biostimulants and liquid aerators moving into the colder season.

This winter we plan to finally finish the 6th and 10th competition, because unfortunately this has had to take a back seat with us concentrating on other things in 2021. We also plan to renovate some of the bunkers which are holding water, doing some tree removal and replacement down holes 6, 7 and 8, and also tidying up our lakes with some weed maintenance, plus plenty more!

Thank you for being patient

We know that there are times over the last 18 months where the greens could have been better, the bunkers could have definitely been tidier, and other factors may have frustrated some of our golfers, but we feel that we are in a transition period with all the new work we have included in our greens maintenance regime, and having more equipment to use etc. We are now moving into a phase where we will have more staff to use the new machinery and cope with the more demanding maintenance schedule, so we’re confident you will start to see this all come to fruition in 2022. We thank you for sticking with us and want everyone to know we are striving for big improvements now, some of these things just take time to fix.