Burghill Valley Golf Club
Course Update March 2025
Dear Members,
With the 1st of April fast approaching I wanted to take the opportunity to update you on work we have done on the course.
We have been busy since Christmas with tee renovations, installing new steps on tees, tree removal and stump grinding. These are some bigger projects that we have completed:
Irrigation upgrade to tees and greens
Renovation of the 1st tee constructing a retaining wall with sleepers for both men's and women's tees, and block paving the ground to improve the entrance to the course.
Phase 1 drainage pond on 14th has been excavated, to create holding point for water coming off the field. We will keep this pond full all year round so will also become a new water feature for the 14th White tee.
The soil taken from the pond work has been used to remodel and increase the size of the 14th and 15th tees.
Phase 2 drainage The ditch from the 7th now runs from pond to the 7th tee, this will ultimately help with drainage on 7th and 15th fairways as we will then mole plough and Verti drain the fairways this summer. Another ditch has been added on the 16th to help with the fairway and the orchard.
We have had 2 drainage specialists in this week to look at the orchard on the left of the 16th and put a plan in place for this very wet area moving forward.
I regularly meet with an agronomist from ReGen, with him we put a greens plan in place for the year. I have attached his report on the greens for your interest, please click link below:
In general, our greens are in good condition and although we had some disease at the start of winter the soil condition is healthy and with the warm weather the scarring will soon disappear. The main aim of our maintenance work is to increase the amount of bent grass in our greens, bent grass is a stronger better grass and more resilient to stress and disease. It is impossible to get to 100% bent grass however over time we can increase the % of bent grass.
The two Greens maintenance this year will be 15th April (afternoon start) and w/c 11th August. The second greens maintenance will be more invasive work however completing it earlier in the year will mean the greens will recover quicker and go into the winter stronger and hopefully more resilient to disease. We have found many golf clubs are now completing maintenance work earlier in the year because of this.
The good news is we are aiming to be back on the summer course on Wednesday 2nd April. We are currently working hard getting the course ready for this. Including tidying various places, painting and clearing debris.
We are looking forward to the season fast approaching and thank you in advance for your support.
Best wishes
Lee
Head Greenkeeper BVGC
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