Royal Portrush Putting Green Back in Play.

Today we re-opened the Dunluce putting green for play. The green has remained closed since the turf was used to create the new Dunluce 8th green.

The green was then reinstated using hollow cores from the Dunluce course and fescue seed. The green has been grown in since last May but for a fescue links green this is still a relatively short time and the green may take another season to mature fully. 

Over-seeding and topderssing will continue this season to ensure that the green is fully matured for the Boys Open Championship in 2018. 

Testing day on the links

Visitors will have the true links experience with wind gusting 40-50mph. All new tees and greens are now open and we look forward to opening the new 7th & 8th holes for Captains day on the 24th June.

Tunnel ends

The tunnel is nearing completion, with end caps being installed today. The end pieces will block the tunnel end but also act as a rain shelter. They will then be faced off with railway sleepers to blend with the others on the course.

Valley Links

A super morning for golf on the Valley. The Course is improving week on week and some orchids are now appearing in the roughs.

Mowing heights

Greens have wintered reasonably well and as the fescue begins to come out of dormancy and growth becomes more apparent we begin to reduce the heights of cut.

Heights of cut were reduced from 6mm to 5.5mm 2 weeks ago and stimp readings are currently 9′. As Met office are forecasting day time temperatures of 5 degrees Celsius for next week we may hold off reducing heights further until the end of the week but green speeds of 9′ 6″ can be achieved with a little rolling.

New flags

May the golfing season begin…New flags, cups, tee markers and bins have gone out on both courses this week, followed by refurbished benches and Causway stones for tee information next week and the following week. 

Recovery of winter tees

All of our winter tees were tined and seeded 4 weeks ago and the results are very pleasing. 

Some of the smaller tees were seeded with bar Olympic which is a very fine leafed rye which can be mown at tees height. This will be a little hardier for next winter and playing surfaces should retain some density in spite of wear.

Lynx Irrigation Operating System

We have recently upgraded our Toro irrigation operating system from Sitepro to Lynx.

This is a definite upgrade and appears to be  far more user friendly. While changing the holes for the saturday competition yesterday I was able to water all of the new greens, tees and walkways from my mobile phone on the way round.

A big thank you to Adrian Mortram RHA and MJ Abbott for installation.

 

 

Saturday morning set up

Saturday was a beautiful day for golf and with temperatures beginning to rise we are seeing some growth and germination of seeding work done over the last 2 weeks. Rested greens will open on Friday and the courses will resume summer conditions.

Course furniture

Amazing how well the Course Furniture has turned out after Cleaning and treatment with teak oil. 

Fantastic job done once again by our Greenkeeping team.