“A huge leap
forward in greens roller technology”
The problem is…
We mentioned earlier that we know when our greens have to be good and so does the golfer. How many of us have had that conversation with the Chairman of Green about improving green speed. We have, on many occasions too. Back in the early part of June 2007 my new Chairman had the familiar chat, “Important week for the club coming up, would be good if the greens were just a little faster”. Been here before? The problem that we faced was that we had set the management programme for the year, aeration, fertility level, height of cut and verti- cutting, all with the view of the long-term improvement of the greens, but had we lost sight of the most important thing? Playing quality. The DT way of thinking doesn’t compromise on playing quality.
Solving the problem
Here’s what we did. We took it upon ourselves to intensify our actions. We didn’t want to throw away the management programme, but we did want to focus upon increasing the speed of the greens and satisfying the golfer. We had very specific targets to aim for with a speed of 8.5 - 9ft on the stimpmeter being ideal for our style of course. We kept our height of cut the same, 5 mm, but we increased the frequency of cut from our typical four times a week to twelve. In conjunction, we increased our brushing frequency to daily, before cutting. In order to quantify what
we were doing, we recorded the daily speed of the greens with a stimpmeter to measure that improvement. We employed such typical practices as double cutting at 90 degrees to remove more grass. We brushed, cut, brushed again and cut again. We even employed the American “freaky” style of
cut to try to increase the speed of the greens throughout the week. The freaky cut did appear to increase the speed of the greens, more so than traditional double cutting. The result was that we did
increase the speed of the greens. After employing an additional twenty hours of work on the greens, (we are a 9 hole facility, so double it for 18) we managed to obtain an extra 1-foot of pace, that’s all.
The members noticed the
improvement of pace, they even appreciated it, but was it worth it? My Chairman asked the question if we could keep the greens that way for the rest of the year. This is where that word sustainability comes in. The answer was a disappointing “no”. When we detailed the additional workload, time constraints, the fact that we left other areas of the course to focus on the greens, which now need our attention, it just didn’t stack up. It was, ultimately, unsustainable.
The drawing board
Now, we know what some of you are thinking. Why not lower the height of cut? Fewer inputs for the greenkeeper and better speed for the golfer, we all win, right? Wrong. We were at the final stages of phase 1, which had taken us four steady years. Our focus was on gradually improving what we had and we were bearing fruit from our efforts. The bent content of our greens was increasing, fungicide usage was down and, so too, was fertiliser inputs. In short, the greens were improving, surely it wasn’t worth throwing in the towel now. The result was that we would stick to our guns, for 2007 anyway, but review our agronomic practices for 2008 with Henry Bechelet at his next visit.
All of this got me thinking about rolling. We’d read
ere is the result of more than 15 years of continuous product development by the pioneers of the vibratory greens roller. The GreenTek Select-A-Vibe rollers have five different Power Levels enabling you to achieve the maximum benefit for the exact task you are doing.
H
Here are some examples:
GreenTek
27
Select-A-Vibe Greens Rollers
NEW
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