What is Sustainable Golf?
Optimising the playing quality of the golf course in harmony with the conservation of its natural environment under economically sound and socially responsible management.
It’s about maintaining the golf course with minimum fuss, it’s avoiding the over use of chemicals, fertiliser and water. Maintaining the course in harmony with the environment and keeping the ecological balance.
Why is this important?
The club were spending too much money on fertilisers, chemicals and water out of a relatively small budget. It is more beneficial to our club to spend the money on topdressing and seed. Managing Poa greens effectively is costly, both financially and environmentally. I also feel that legislation, restricting the use of substances that harm the environment, will be coming into force. The over use of chemicals, fertiliser and water will be a thing of the past. In other European countries restrictions have already been imposed. It is inevitable that the UK will have to come in to line with the
rest of Europe. We are being pro-active with our management so we don’t suffer the consequences in the future. The greens perform much better when they are on the dry and hungry side; they are quicker, smoother and more consistent. However, they are never soft, target greens. I am not an advocate of target golf; golfers are getting enough help with new technology, I don’t think they need more help with soft greens. Soft target greens have taken a lot of the skill out of the game. We have a moral duty to look after the environment. It is my belief that a golf course surrounded by nature makes a pleasant environment in which to play golf. Nobody wants to play on a sterile course with no ambiance. We need to think about the course in the future. Planting indigenous trees now will create fantastic woodlands in years to come.
Over the last five years we have been
introducing a more desirable grass species. ‘Colonial Bents’ have been used with great success and now we have introduced pure fescue grasses that are even more tolerant to stress. They perform better under drought and frost; they need very little feed &
“Managing Poa greens effectively is costly, both environmentally and financially”
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