Hello and welcome to this weeks newsletter and welcome back to golf! After seven weeks of lockdown golf was fortunate to return to Saffron Walden last Thursday. Even though a lot of planning had gone into the reopening you never know quite what's going to happen until the day itself and I must admit I was slightly apprehensive about it on Wednesday night. Come Thursday night and reflecting on the day I don't think it could have gone any better. It was a real pleasure to open up and see everyone come back down with a bounce in their step, looking forward to playing and probably just thrilled at the chance to get out of the house. The sun shone and there was hardly a breath of wind in the air. Both opening tee shots were struck down the middle, even with the Pro stood behind them taking pictures, and the course looked amazing. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those involved for making this happen from Jonathan to the Chairman and committee and the volunteers who have helped out on the gate and divoting last week. The biggest praise as far as the course goes has to go to Ian Cambridge, Scott Parnell and Dan Clark. These were the three green staff left and have carried out the work that seven normally would have done. I have been coming down most days for my exercise as well as to make sure the shop was safe and secure. I spoke to Ian on a regular basis to get updates of the course condition and what they were able to do. Although working under tight government guidelines and only been down to a skeleton staff they were able to bring a couple of green treatments forward while the course was quiet and have carried out a lot of repair work. From what I've seen the approaches have benefited immensely from this and there has been a lot of recovery in areas like the left hand greenside bunker on the second and on many tees. I've seen first hand how hard these guys have been working, by 2.30pm every day they looked shattered. They have worked under difficult circumstances, not been able to operate on the same holes as one another, not been able to sit in the yard and have lunch together and not knowing if all their work might be in vain if the course was not to reopen in the near future. I have never seen them moan, bicker or have anything negative to say whilst this has been going on. I know Ian has been coming in outside of his normal hours to do checks as well as jobs like hand watering certain areas. Below are some images of the team working in isolation or adhering to the 2m social distancing rules. |