Greenkeeper Newsletter

Dear members,

Pre-season information
A warm welcome to all our new and existing members as I write my first information newsletter of the year. Our mechanic Mikael, who has been a valued member of my team for the last 15 years, has decided to relocate to Jutland. We extend our best wishes to him and express our gratitude for his dedicated service to Simon’s Golf A/S. We would also like to extend a warm welcome to our new mechanic, Christian, who brings over 25 years of experience in golf course mechanics. Additionally, we are pleased to welcome our new irrigation technician, Per, who has almost 20 years of experience and is also a qualified electrician.

I appreciate that we have had some excellent spells of weather over the last couple of weeks, but it is still very early in the season and the cool night temperatures will be will us for some time. I have taken the opportunity to spray greens, tees and fairways with a winter mix and we have mown the greens once at winter height. We have been very lucky not to have received too much disease and we look to be in fantastic shape for season ahead.

We will continue to spray/fertilise the course over the weeks ahead, should the opportunity present itself we will also start to perform some greens, tees and fore greens aeration.

Official season start is not until April 1^st at which point our seasonal staff will join us. As for the summer course, preferred lies and trolley ban being lifted I will give information in due course.

Robots
Both cables and robots have been delivered and a team from Nelson & Vecchio (the same company who carried out our 2020 remodel) will be on site from Tuesday 11^th March to install over 2km of cable over all 3 loops. This is expected to take approximately 12 days based on the weather and ground conditions. The installation of all 15 robots is due to begin on Monday 3^rd April and take at least 7 days to complete by the very competent team from Nellemann Machinery. Please be aware that the 9-hole course will be blocked for the next 2 weekends to allow for this task to be carried out. I will open as much as I can wherever possible, whilst ensuring the safety of the staff onsite.

C8/C9 hazard area
It has been decided by the Club Rules Committee that C8/C9 should be marked as an extended red hazard, please see information below:

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Repeal of temporary local rule

As of March 24th 2025 the temporary local rule regarding C8 and C9 played as Penalty area with no play zone is removed.

The area is now a normal penalty area where the ball can be played as it lies or dropped according to rule 17 until new trees are planted.

Best regards
Martin Logan
HCP and Rules Committee

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Simon’s Golf A/S were forced to remove the tall spruce trees in this area as they risked damaging the power lines next to them should they fall with a domino effect, and we were only offered very small one year old saplings to replace them. Therefore, Simon’s Golf A/S will bring in Gribskov Stub og Gren to transplant the area with approximately 30 trees from neighbouring C1 and C3.

Phase one – Gribskov Stub og Gren will visit in the next few weeks to prune the lower branches of the selected trees, this is to ensure they are not injured by the large hydraulic spade used to dig them up and transport them. This procedure does cause some stress to the tree, but they will recover from this in a few months.

Phase two – Gribskov Stub og Gren will return in the autumn where the trees will be transplanted going into the cold winter months and additional soil will be spread around the roots to ensure they have the best chance of survival. The area around the newly transplanted trees will be rotovated and turfed/seeded. By using trees from the same area and of the same age the trees should, by the following season, look like they were always there.

Red barn removal
The red barn at the end of the Driving Range is to be removed for safety reasons. Obviously with people working in the area it is imperative that they can do so safely, signage will be placed at the Driving Range instructing golfers not to hit balls anywhere near this area, we appreciate that this will be a minor inconvenience, but the alternative would be to have to close the Driving Range. Eventually the site on which the barn stood will be turfed as an extension to the Driving Range.

Kind regards,

Reamonn O’Neill
Golf Course Superintendent