St Andrews Links Blog

A new year begins on The Old Course!

Another year has passed and latterly we were busy with quite a lot of work on the course which was completed successfully before the Christmas break.

Now we are back and the milder weather is upon us with high temperatures of 11 degrees yesterday. This is great for the lads to work in! This week we have started to alter the 7th tees which are being slightly lowered and extended to the front where a new ladies tee will be created. We are also currently in the process of re-building the Hill bunker which lies to the left-hand side of the 11th green.

If you have played the course recently you may have noticed some unusual marks on the 4th and 6th greens. This was caused by hydraulic oil leaks that occurred towards the end of November. We started work on these areas over the last few days which has included hollow coring the areas, seeding, followed by a top dress. The areas will need intensive over seeding once the spring arrives to bring it back to a full level of grass coverage.

Gorse management continues with various areas that have been cleared over the last few weeks. Some of these areas will be completely re-grassed to give better sight lines from a number of the tees that have become overgrown in recent years.