Club Champs

As many of you know we had our first club championship week. Just a few photos to remember the occasion. The guys worked hard and with good weather the golf course looked great.

We made a quick video to capture the day at 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU0VYp6QJqg

enjoy!!

Dam that looks good!!

Bearwood Estate can often be the the gift that keeps on giving. I have worked here for six years and we are still exposing new views and vistas which have been lost for years.

This is the view which hasn't been seen for years from the 5th dam. It has always been covered with rhododendron and woodland. After some backbreaking work by the greenkeeping team climbing up the dam with logs you can see the gap in the woodland from the 11th tees below and then the brilliant view from the dam which we have exposed.

bunker update

Many of you might be thinking, however long does it take to build a bunker! After waiting for the architect to draw it out and pausing for the club champs, we have now cut it out and we will shape it and sand it next week

Woodland work

Sometimes all parts of our long term golf course management strategy overlap. This week we have finished tidying up the woodland to the left of the ladies tee on the 11th. This work has many benefits to it and overlaps the architectural view, water management policy and woodland improvement.

1. Clearance of this scrub will mean we can see the new fairway bunker planned for the left hand side of the 11th from the black tees
2. It finishes off the lake improvement work which will help water quality of the lake as a result of improved air flow

3. It make views of the lake from more areas of the golf course. Work of this kind has also helped see a massive improvement in the number of natural wildflowers on the site as a result of woodland thinning and clearance. The amount of foxgloves coming through this year has been stunning. 

4. Next week we will be clearing ther dam so we can see Bearwood Lake from the 11th tees. You can see in the picture below that this will look great. One of the aims of the club is to make the water features more visible from areas of the golf course, especially when the look as good as Bearwood Lake.

 Upper lake from the 11th yellow tees

We have cleared half the woodland by the yellow tees to expose the view of the lake from the tee. We will do other half in the winter to improve the view from the tee. This will also allow us to repair the drainage to these tees which runs under the scrub.

How busy have we been!

Life in the greens department has been so busy at Bearwood Lakes, we haven't even had time to post our adventures. Apart from getting the golf course into great shape for the club champs we have also been undertaking important tree work as part of our work plan with Wentworth Tree Care and progressing with our construction work. 

Tree work 


Some of you may have noticed the removal of two trees by the side of the 16th tee. Although not in play they looked unsightly. One was totally dead but at first we tried to keep the other. After making the decision to fell it the picture below shows we were right. It was very near the public footpath and was a potential hazard.

Member and guest safety are paramount at the club and we have had to remove a significant tree on the route down towards the driving range. Parts of this tree have been falling down for years and we decided that it was time for it to go. my only advice is that if you are scared of heights and thinking of a  career change, then arboriculture is probably not for you. The guys do a great job, its hard work but the results can be stunning.

  There is a guy at the top if you look cloesly

Bunker finished for now

Bunker on 5

Many of you may have been hoping the bunker on 5 would take a little longer to complete! The free drop, from the bunker is very welcome, but this particularly benefit won`t last much longer. The turf arrived on Tuesday and we have been working hard to ensure the bunker is in place as soon as possible.

It is unlikely it will be in place for the Club Championship, but I have put a few pictures up of the work over the last few days, so you can get a feel for how it might look. The staff have worked extremly hard and we even used our new JCB to move the turf quickly to the site.

You don`t see Steve working this hard often!!

Watering is essential to ensure good success

as is good nutrition - composted Turkey litter on this occasion!!

Looking good!

blog hits 2000 views per month!!

I would just like to thank all the viewers of this blog for their time and interest - I have been running it for less than 1 one year and we have just hit 2000 views per month. For a blog, solely concerned with the maintenance and development Bearwood Lakes Golf Course in Berkshire, this amount of interest is staggering and continues to grow. There is so much going on at the golf club at the moment. I will continue do my best to ensure I give an accurate and interesting account of the improvements on the course.

Thank you - Daniel Lightfoot MG MSc

First tee finished

Apart from some greenkeeping to get the first tee into a playable state, the basic shape and design is finished. Just a few piccys to show the final layout. Hope you like it and watch out for the Digitalis purpurea 'Pam's Choice' at the back of the bed in a couple of weeks. Should look stunning and my particular favourite.  Down to the fifth bunker now to get it graded and turfed.