While many golfers think of summer as the perfect time to enjoy courses at their very best, it's also one of the busiest periods for essential golf course maintenance. With warmer temperatures and strong grass growth, greenkeeping teams take advantage of the conditions to carry out important work that simply isn't possible at other times of the year.
Throughout the summer months, you may find that some courses, or parts of courses, are temporarily closed while maintenance takes place. This can include the renovation of greens and tees, fairway improvements, bunker refurbishment, drainage works, irrigation upgrades, and wider course improvement projects. Some clubs also use quieter weekdays to complete larger-scale works that would be far more disruptive during the winter.
Many courses will also carry out renovation work on individual greens, involving aeration, scarification, topdressing and over-seeding. Although this can temporarily affect putting surfaces, these processes are essential to maintaining healthy turf and ensuring excellent playing conditions for the remainder of the season and beyond.
As a result, you may occasionally encounter temporary greens, holes taken out of play, preferred lies in specific areas, or restrictions on buggies while work is underway. In some cases, clubs may reduce the number of available tee times or close sections of the course altogether to allow projects to be completed safely and efficiently.
At OGC, with access to over 60 courses across the UK, it's simply not possible for us to keep track of every maintenance programme or temporary closure as they change throughout the season. We therefore recommend that, if course conditions are particularly important to you, you ask the club about any planned maintenance or ongoing works when booking your tee time.
The vast majority of these projects are short-term and are carried out to improve the long-term quality, playability and sustainability of the course. A little patience now helps ensure the excellent conditions we all enjoy for the rest of the golfing season.
Thank you, as always, for your understanding and for supporting the fantastic golf clubs within the OGC collection.
