Routine maintenance

After coring of greens and tees in the last few weeks, this week was a more normal week maintenance wise with all areas of the course being cut and bunkers being raked and returned to normal after last weeks heavy rainfall. The rainfall pattern for the month of September was unusual in the sense that 66% of the total fell in the last three days of the month.

	September 2011	September 2010	average
Rainfall	100 mm	111 mm	90.5 mm
Year to Date	726 mm	712.5 mm	698 mm
No. of rain days	10	14	-
Average Temp.	19.1°C	16.3°C	-
Average Humidity	64.1%	76.4%	-

As this has been a relatively quiet week I will take the opportunity to enlighten you on some of the finer points of bunker raking

• Before exiting a bunker, a player should carefully rake over all signs of play in the sand, and then leave the rake with the handle pointing toward the tee of the hole being played.
• In the bunker, the teeth of the rake should be used to repair the floor of the bunker and only the flat reverse side of the rake should be used to smooth any damage to the bunker faces/sides.

Step by Step Guide  

1. Your entry into the bunker matters - always enter the bunker at the lowest point. Stepping in and out on a steep face causes unnecessary damage and pushes sand off of the face into the bottom of the bunker. Plus, it's much easier to rake flat areas of sand.
2. Begin raking over the signs of play from the sand - the area where your club made contact with the sand and your footprints. Pull the teeth of the rake toward you as you begin moving back to the edge of the bunker.
3. Be careful not to pull too much sand toward you. The idea is to restore an even surface to the sand without displacing too much sand. If you are pulling too much sand toward you, try pushing the teeth outward a few times. All the while, you should be progressing back to the edge of the bunker.
4. If required, rake other affected areas. Use only the flat reverse side of the rake to smooth any damage to the bunker faces/sides.
5. Do not pile sand at the edge of the bunker. To complete raking, step out of the bunker and push back any excess sand using only the flat reverse side of the rake.
6. When you have finished, the sand's surface should be evened out, with no signs of divots or footprints, and no excess sand having been pulled toward the bunkers edge. There will be little furrows left from the teeth of the rake.

Before you step away from the bunker, the most important thing is that the sand be in as good or better condition than that which you found it in. Make sure golfers following behind you have a good quality bunker from which to play any necessary shots.

Thank you for your co-operation, as the more care you take when raking bunkers means the less time staff have to spend on repairing damage, which in turn means more time spent on other essential maintenance work.