How is your course holding up ?

I played a decent respected course today and whilst the greens were exceptional the fairways were shockingly dry and in lots of places just soil and no grass.

Can't blame the courses as there isn't really much they can do but was shocked at the condition and wasn't really expecting it.

How is your local course holding up with the dry spells April/May?

My local, Southern Valley, has problems with not enough grass on the fairways quite a lot.  It probably drains far too well and even after the recent rain we have had the fairways were still rock solid when I played there on Wednesday evening.  The greens however have been in the best nick the last three or four weeks that I have seen them and it really makes a difference putting on a good surface (shame about my putting).

pretty similar here. My course drains really well, and bakes when it is dry and hot, so april/may was very dry.  With the rain we have had recently, the fairways are beginning to recover nicely, but the greens are really superb.  It's a nice place to play (as long as you aren't in trees!)

My course is very poor after any spell of dry weather.

The greens are normally good, but this year they were very poor at the start of the season.  They have come along now and are the best part of the course.

The tees are green but very bumpy.  Probably due to a lack of attention from the management!

I played the midweek medal last Wednesday and there were daisies growing on the fairway and long weeds (about 9 inches) all over the place.  Looking back we estimated that the fairways were probably cut the week before!

Another problem with my course is that there is no fairway sprinklers so that means them getting very hard.

To help with drainage they installed land drains across and along the fairways.  These were a good idea but they left them so now we have ruts running across and along the fairways.  Mine is the only course where I have seen land drains left like this.  Normally they put a couple of inches of topsoil on top of them and then returf them!

It's the end of my three year contract at the end of this year and I'm seriously thinking of moving to another golf club.  Crown Golf are not interested in the golf club, purely the money they can get from us.

Bentley GC is very good and around the same price as what I am paying now.

Risebridge GC is as near to me at Stapleford Abbotts GC but half the price.

Russ

My course never been better, very slight brown(ish) patches on fairways but no patches without grass