Royal Aberdeen Golf Club – Golf Course Blog

Tag: course

  • Rainfall – May 2025 Update

    Rainfall is a key element of Scottish weather and it dictates how and when the golf course maintenance can be carried out here at Royal Aberdeen Golf Club.


    This year has been an incredibly difficult year with a prolonged winter and cooler temperatures lasting until April, meaning growth was slow at the start of the season. The  freezing temperatures were followed by a prolonged dry spell which meant our irrigation system was being used on a daily basis throughout early Spring. 

     Aberdeen has an average annual rainfall of around 866 mm whereas some areas in Scotland receive about 3,000 mm of precipitation per year.

    As you can see from the stats below it has been a considerably dry year on the links,  we are currently around 130mm below the average precipitation rates for Aberdeen and in comparison to last years data we have had around 263mm less to date.

    The monthly data is slightly misleading whereas the daily chart shows a much different story with long spells where we ran into weeks without any precipitation at all.

    The monthly rainfall totals for 2025 are as follows;

    January 55.6mm
    February 26.2mm
    March 35.2mm
    April 9.4mm
    May 2mm (as of 15/05/2025)

    Total precipitation to date = 126mm

  • Balgownie – Autumn Maintenance

     Our Annual Autumn maintenance took place between 21st – 23rd October 2024 and gave us the opportunity to Hollow Core the greens and surrounds . This practice was carried out to remove a large percentage of organic matter, relieve compaction, increase root development, improve drainage and provide the material to create a playing surface for our new contingency first green and approach. By removing the accumulated fibre it allows us to exchange the poorer soils to a better one through a straight sand topdressing helping to firm up all surfaces providing true links like conditions.

    We also took the decision to apply Chewings and slender creeping fescues which offers the best solution for year-round performance. A combination of a drop spreader and vredo disc seeder was used to apply the fescue seed before we worked any excess seed into the holes using  switches to cover the seed within the holes with our indigenous dune sand topdressing. This provided the seeds with the correct growing medium and some protection from the elements. We Overseeded with around 200kg of Fescue and the seed should germinate within the next month due to the slightly cooler conditions. To achieve maximum seed establishment and rapid surface recovery without creating a flush of growth that would negatively affect playing characteristics we applied a granular feed called C Complex 4-3-4+5CaO+3MgO . We chose this product as it has proven to be effective in aiding recovery while maintaining turf health and vigour without any negative effect on playability.

    Fescue is the most appropriate species to links sites across the UK and with adequate management will provide characteristics that are typical of links golf here at Royal Aberdeen. The practice of overseeding is a vital aspect of what we are trying to achieve at and will now remain part of our annual maintenance at least twice a year.

    The Maintenance procedures were carried out at this time of year when the air and soil temperatures are ideal allowing recovery times to be kept to a minimum. This short term disruption will give us long term benefits giving us firm and true surfaces all year round.