This winter we have experienced high winds and some very wet winter prior to Christmas, followed by an almost completely dry January, but the team have been working on many projects throughout the links, in all weather conditions.
Winter work commenced a little later than normal for us as the courses were so busy through the first half of November, we began by topdressing fairways, re-building bunkers, building 2 new tees on the Valley and a new tee on Dunluce, which will be used predominantly by senior players and mid to high handicap golfers. This will hopefully make competitions a little more inclusive for those who may not have entered previously.
Our irrigation team were busy installing irrigation in the new tees, before upgrading the Valley fairways and greens sprinklers, along with the decoder, which opens and closes the valve to operate the sprinkler. We completed the upgrades on all tees throughout both links last year and by this time next year the upgrades will be complete for both Dunluce and Valley, greens, tees, and fairways.
This has been a considerable investment by the club which has resulted in a far more reliable and accurate application of water to target areas, saving water and energy.
In November we re-built the Dunluce 7th green, softening some of the contours on the green and surrounds which has been a success, it will be interesting to hear the feedback when we re-open the green in the spring.
We have re-built bunkers on Dunluce 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 15th & 18th as well as all our short game area bunkers on both links.
A new path has been constructed on the Valley 17th which has been well hidden in the dunes but allows easier access to the medal tee.
Here are some before and after pictures showing our winter works:
Dunluce 1st
Dunluce 3rd
Dunluce 18th
Valley 17th
