A radical, aggressive approach ...
Sustainability with a bit of AGRO!
C
utting greens at 2mm, aggressive frequent verti-cutting and 200 tonne of sand dressings per year.
Surely, some greenkeepers could jeopordise their jobs, and their greens, with programmes such as this. But Greg Evans has employed this regime for the past six years and guess what? It works. Greg’s greenkeeping philosophy comes
from a player’s perspective. While still in his teens and twenties, he reached a standard that allowed him to play some of the finest golf courses in Europe and North America. He was fortunate enough to examine, at first hand, the effort and skill that enabled the greenkeepers to get these golf courses to such high standards. But, he also took the opportunity to talk to greenkeepers at most of the courses, both before and after each tournament. His interest in greenkeeping developed, hand in glove, with his playing career. In 2003, Greg took the Course Manager’s position at Northwick Park
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Golf Centre, a new development in West London. The challenge was to build and grow-in a course that had previously been a rubbish tip. The theme for this golf centre was based upon feature holes from famous courses around the world. Northwick Park replicated holes ranging from Royal Birkdale with long wispy rough to Augusta with manicured fairways. To showcase the holes, top class playing conditions were required. It was at this stage that Greg first teamed up with the Irish agronomist, John O’Sullivan. He describes O’Sullivan as forward thinking in his approach to course management and, as a young course manager, he was open to new ideas. With his golfing background he knew the type of course that he wanted to produce. He was, therefore, willing to experiment with some of this Irish agronomist’s suggestions. Greg has always appreciated playing
golf courses with tightly mown fairways playing to firm, fast, true greens. He feels it brings out the skill in the game. But, over the years, he has also played many courses that cater for the middle range handicapper, with fairways that are cut long and greens that are hairy and slow.
He believes that surfaces that are firm, quick and true are more difficult to hit to, and create a real challenge when putting. These types of courses seem to be concentrated on heathland soils or links, which are predominantly on sand, and he wanted to know whether these conditions could be reproduced in different environments, such as parkland courses with heavy clay content, yet remain sustainable? Conventional wisdom assumed that sustainability would remain a problem. At Northwick Park, Greg built brand new US specification creeping bent golf greens. They were sown with G6 and
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