A Year in Review and looking Ahead…

An update from Stuart

Dear Members,

As we approach the New Year celebrations, I want to take a moment to express my heartfelt gratitude for your unwavering support throughout the 2024 season. It has truly been an unforgettable year filled with remarkable events.

This season marked the return of the Faldo Series and the Heineken Classic, alongside our exciting instalment of County Golf, where Northumberland County played Yorkshire. These events have enriched our golfing community and certainly showcased Dunstanburgh to the golfing world.

We also celebrated significant achievements, including our first Honorary Member reaching an impressive 17 titles, Martin Carss was awarded his Honorary Status at our annual presentation evening. Our NNGL team’s excelled, winning the Malcolm Lynch Trophy and success in the Presidents Bowl—what an accomplishment!

Additionally, I’m proud to share that our golf course has been recognized as the 3rd Best Golf Course in Northumberland & Durham by the top 100 rankings, and we have once again been shortlisted for the main Top 100 list. This accolade reflects our commitment to investing in our future, and highlights the indiviual efforts by all of our staff.

However, we’ve faced challenges this year with unprecedented rainfall early in the year, to the unbelievable disease pressure affecting our greens currently.

Let’s address these issues together as I outline our current issues and future plans for improvement. 

Disease Scaring on Greens 

Unfortunately, I start on a slightly less positive note, in October/November time we got hit with a spread of Microdochium Patch disease on the greens. This is more commonly referred to as Fusarium, a fungal based disease which is always present in the soil and certain conditions allow it to grow and attack our playing surfaces. 

Although on most of our greens it is very mild indeed others have been affected worse, such as the 8th, 12th, 13th & 16th, let me explain a little more. 

The perfect conditions for Fusarium to thrive are mild, humid and wet conditions, as well as shaded areas with poor air circulation. The greens affected tick all those boxes indeed. Greens that are wet such as 13, or North Facing banks that take a little longer to dry out 8 & 16, or the 13th tee which blocks the low sunlight from the12th Green really have been hit strong. However with our green keeping head on, Fusarium only really attacks the poorer grass species, so short term pain for long term gain? Maybe… We don’t want to sacrifice good playing surfaces for less grass coverage at this time of year!

However, it’s not all bad news the first stage is to achieve control, which we managed by the beginning of December, the second stage of recovery is to feed the greens with a granular winter feed. (Applied early December) This will help to harden the plant, but also give it a boost in times of any growth days, aiding recovery. Early in the new year we look to carry out some minor maintenance on the greens, certainly to the more heavily affected areas.  

Aeration and Seeding if the temperatures allow which will encourage new growth and help to fill in the disease scars. 

Currently we are in the cross over time period where the greens probably look their worst, healthy grass with some scaring really does stand out in the dull winter days. 

But fear not, before we know it, the scaring will heal and we will be back to normal. The UK has been hit with extremely high disease pressure recently, as the t shirt weather continues well into the winter months! 

On more of a positive note the golf Course has continued to improve, with considerable improvement on our tees, fairways and green surrounds. As we look towards the begining of the season plenty of winter works will continue and theres a little more about that later.

Best Wishes to Sam Thompson 

So recently we have had the news that Sam our Head Greenkeeper is leaving us, Sam has worked at Dunstanburgh for 6 years and 4 of those years he has been Head Greenkeeper. Sam has been a huge part of our team and success over this time period and I would like to take this time to thank him for his efforts, support and hard work. 

I hope you all join me in wishing Sam all the best in his new Adventure & Role. 

Projects & Improvments 

We are thrilled to announce that over the past month, we have initiated a significant project at the clubhouse. This includes replacing cladding, windows, roofing, and enhancing access. We anticipate completion by early spring and appreciate your understanding during this time.

Looking ahead to 2025, we are prioritizing further enhancements to our facilities. Plans are already underway for new practice areas, including nets, a chipping and putting green, and hopefully a driving range. We believe these upgrades will greatly benefit all members.

In addition to clubhouse improvements, early discussions regarding car park expansions have taken place, and we have some exciting news regarding the road leading to the golf course. After much advocacy, the Council has agreed to relay the road in February/March.

On a slightly different note, we need to inform you that the re-routing of the course has been postponed until March. A few final details need attention before we proceed with this plan. More information about course routing is below.

Thank you for your continued support as we work on these important projects. We are committed to enhancing your experience at our club and look forward to sharing more updates with you

125th Birthday & The vacant Head Greenkeeper Role. 

I have already made plans to recruit a new member of staff into our Greenkeeping department, a new role of Links Manager will be filled and news of this will be announced in due course.

Finally and the most exciting part, in 2025 Dunstanburgh will be 125 years old, we have some celebratory plans in the summer months for you all to look forward to.

Thank you all for your support,

Best Wishes for 2025, 

Stuart Imeson

Interested in finding out more? Details below of the 2024/25 winter plan and new routing of the course.

The Routing, Practice Green & New First Tee.

In Spring 2025 the Golf course will take a new routing, this routing will begin at the 7th Hole. We are constructing a new larger practice putting green near the site of the furtherest putting green from the clubhouse. The introduction of Championship Tees, Further Practice facilities including warm up nets chipping areas will be added to further enhance our facilities. Please see the new routing, yardages, stroke indexs and hole name changes below. (Stroke index tbc)

Hole No. Hole Name  Ne SI  Cu SI Champ White Yellow Par Red Par

1 Blow out 15 14 309 305 299 4 270 4

2 Dunes 11 11 364 340 307 4 250 4

3 Lilburn Tower 1 1 420 408 371 4 371 4

4 Pillbox 4 4 458 425 405 4 370 4

5 Riggs 15 15 323 309 294 4 280 4

6 Saddle Rock 3 2 470 422 412 4 347 4

7 Castle 16 18 127 127 102 3 102 4

8 Crags 12 8 575 529 520 5 469 5

9 Basin 18 17 140 125 118 3 108 3  

10 Steads 10 12 402 390 378 4 315 4

11 Elders 8 9 410 410 371 4 325 4

12 Burn 6 6 440 440 430 4 420 4

13 Scaith 7 7 417 413 410 4 409 5

14 Tom Ha's Hill 5 10 366 366 356 4 350 4

15 Newbiggin 13 13 380 380 370 4 364 4

16 Plateau 2 3 164 164 159 4 150 3

17 Hilltop 17 16 284 284 278 4 269 4

18 Salthole 9 5 392 392 386 4 382 4

White Yardage = 6229

Yellow Yardage = 5966

Red Yardage = 5551

Current longest length course we can put in play here at Dunstanburgh is a strong 6287 yards (white tees), After some new tees are built, and a new tee box allocation we will take that up to 6441yards for the 2025 season. Having said this, that will be off the back tees, when we introduce a new Championship Tee Marker. Members Competition’s will remain to be played from the white tees.

The Bunker Philosophy & Programme

After a successful 2023-2024 Winter, we will be pushing on with our Bunker programme this winter, a reminder below of the theories and styles we are looking to achieve.

Greens Complex’s & Managed Area’s

We will keep the style of revetting reducing the total of revetted bunkers to 25, meaning the Greenstaff could sustainably revett these bunkers on a 4 year cycle maintaining their crisp looking walls, and clean presentation.

Fairway and Rough Bunkers

We would change the style of these bunkers, to a Natural edged traditional links sand blow Bunker, these would be built and maintained rather than reconstructed every few seasons. These Bunkers are generally less deep but larger in size, making them easier to access and play from.

This winter we plan on visiting the following bunkers; (using the old routing numbering) 6th front two greenside, 9th all 3 greensides, 10th greenside, 14th both right side fairway bunkers, 14th all 3 greenside bunkers, 15th right greenside. Some new Bunkers will also be added (if the we achieve the following)

Tee Programme

Reading the above plan you can see there are going to be many changes to our tee boxes. Notable Championship tee boxes will be constructed and brought into play for the 2025 season.

New Tees will be constructed on the; (using the old routing numbering) 1st Tee Complex, 10th Championship, 11th Championship, 12th Championship, 14th Championship.

Other Projects

Another notable project will be carried out on the 9th hole. The area of land before the fairway has been in poor condition for some time, we are going reshape this area, using the material for construction of new tees, the new putting green. This project will improve the visual aspect of the tee shot and those struggling to clear the area from the medal tee. An area will be left as an open sand area, so the material can be used throughout the season.

Have your say?