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“The use of seaweed extracts and seaweed compost, as well as nitrogen-based fertilizers has been a very successful treatment programme for our greens up to now. It gives a nice balanced colour to the greens.” “We do collect the seaweed ourselves and compost it. It was common practice at courses in the past but with labour costs, people are often more tempted to go and buy off-the-shelf stuff. It’s produced here in Ireland and comes mostly with a mixture of sulphate of iron.” And seaweed isn’t the only natural resource utilised either, as Eamon explains. “We top-dress the greens with a mixture of the composted seaweed and local black sand (the top layer of sand found in dunes land). We avoid importing sand for topdressing greens. By using the local stuff we don’t have any compaction on the greens as the sand particles are equal in size.” All clever but eminently sensible stuff. It’s an approach that has begun to yield results for the club with word of Carne’s reputation beginning to get out across the golfing globe. Year-on-year green fees revenue


is steadily building and plans are afoot to build a further nine holes at the course. “It’s something we’re doing within a five-year programme” says Eamon. “We are using the winter months to carry out the work, so, again, there’s minimal disturbance to flora and fauna. We feel in five years’ time, traffic on the course will demand the extra holes.” Carne life member, Jim Engh, - the acclaimed American course architect - is a fitting successor to Hackett for the job of designing the course’s new nine. Engh once commented: “Golf is the only artwork that you can really get inside of to experience and you can compete with it too,” and he has sworn to follow Hackett’s philosophy of shaping and not raping the virgin terrain that is there. Besides, he'd be ill- advised to eschew Hackett’s approach given the Irishman’s lofty collaborator on its design. “Hackett said ‘God designed it - I just put a few holes in it and dressed it up a bit,’ - and you can’t argue with that!” recalls Eamon fondly.


Mangan’s magic Eamon’s three tips for lush links


1. Employ a course designer that will respect the fragile nature of dunes land and who will design golf holes around what is there rather than force golf holes on the terrain.


2. Indigenous fescue and bent grasses found in dunes land have for centuries thrived without being fed any form of artificial fertilizer, it makes perfect sense not to over- fertilise these grasses.


“God designed it - I just put a few holes in it and dressed it up a bit”


Eddie Hackett, Golf Course Designer


3. Pesticides and weed-killer should only be used in extreme cases and care should be taken to use the correct sprayers with wind protection hoods, therefore ensuring that no drift will occur. Far too often we see cloud drifts from spraying on golf courses with unprotected sprayers. Obliviously this drift causes enormous damage to the flora downwind in the rough and other parts of the course.


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