Welcome to another edition of our newsletter, in this week’s mail we talk you through the maintenance out on the course, we have new iron arrivals from Mizuno and Srixon, and my new online booking system is on the way. Enjoy the read!
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Maintenance week It’s been a perfect week for the hollow-tining and the course maintenance procedure. It always seems a shame that the greens are so good at this time of year and then we have to ruin them for a few days. Of course, it’s this process that ensures they are good in the first place so it’s a necessary evil. The forecast is good for the next two weeks and in recent years the greens have completely recovered in less than two weeks - you couldn’t even tell they’d been worked on. Hollow tining involves the physical removal of cores of turf from the playing surfaces, the holes are generally 13-16mm in diameter and of varying depths depending on the reason for the tine and the ground condition.
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The cores are ejected, swept up and removed to be used in other areas as compost, we rebuilt the 5th white tee path with them last year. It’s all done to reduce compaction, aerate the sub-surface and to promote greater root depth of the grass. This means drainage is more efficient and the plant is more resistant to disease as we head into the winter. The coring helps address the problem of thatch as well. (Thatch is a layer of grass stems, roots, and debris that settle and accumulate over time.). A thin layer of thatch is acceptable but too much will hold water like a sponge.
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We used to perform the course maintenance in March and at that time of year, the benefit is that the holes will stay open longer and aerate the greens fully, but the recovery rate is a lot longer and it doesn’t promote the root growth as well as late summer. A decade ago we rearranged the calendar of events at the club which enabled this more efficient timing of the maintenance to take place. Occasionally we have done it twice in a year, early and late when the greens have needed it and of course it’s always a balancing act - grennkeepers would always want it doing more and many golfers would want it less.
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Tuesday Social The Tuesday Social went ahead this week with a mulligan allowed once on the green in 9 holes. Angela Byers and Joe Phillips shot the winning score with 21 points each.
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New arrivals It’s an exciting time in the Pro Shop as two of the finest manufacturers of golf gear, Mizuno and Srixon, release new products this week. They both only replace their club ranges every two years and happily they’ve not changed them much as the previous models were so popular and effective. Amazingly, they have managed to improve the forgiveness and performance of them quite a bit though, in clever ways. For example Mizuno have adjusted the angle at which they cut the channel into the back of the head of the JPX forged model - going in through the sole to cut it parallel to the face now, which increase the forgiveness by 30%!
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I was lucky enough to test the Srixon products a month ago in St Andrews and the driver is phenomenal. They’ve used a more expensive titanium for the face with higher strength to weight ratios, usually found in £800 Japanese drivers, and they’ve wrapped it over the crown and under the sole to increase the effect. Every one of the 70 golfers who were there, including tour pros, club pros, amateurs and journalists were smitten by it - and the price tag is less than all of this year’s most popular drivers.
Click here if you’d like to book a fitting or to test them out. |
Speaking of booking an appointment - you’ll soon be able to book online as I’ve been testing a new extensive diary system for the past month. I helped to develop it and online booking 24/7 is one of the new added features.
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Gapping is vitally important to any golfer. Being able to pick a club out of the bag and knowing exactly how far you can strike the ball will make for more confident shots, as you won’t be constantly wondering if you should club up or club down. |
Not just for wedges Gapping is often associated with the shorter clubs in your bag, but it's just as important to make sure you pay attention to the gaps between your longer clubs, too. Good gapping would see you have equal gaps between clubs that are no bigger than 15 yards, as displayed in the green illustration below. In contrast, bad gapping would leave you with uneven or large distances between clubs, often over 20 yards or under 10. Having equal gaps throughout your bag will mean you are much closer with your next club, so you won’t have to manufacture shorter/longer swings or hit soft/hard shots, which is where a lot of problems begin. |
Being able to know exactly how far each club goes can be even more helpful if you have a GPS device telling you the exact distance between your ball and the pin. So if you're still guessing how far you hit each club, come and speak to a member of the team. We can guarantee it's costing you shots. |
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