A traditional laid hedge attracts all manner of animals, birds and insects
areas of specific habitat which blend and merge with the courses.
• Developing and enhancing landscape features such as Cotswold stone walls, trees and water.
The new courses give the members a choice of playing conditions. There are plenty of testing holes to play with a combination of bunkers, dry stone walls and open water features. Maintenance regimes are pretty much the same for both of the new courses. Greens are kept at 3mm in the summer and 4.5mm in the winter. They may be dropped a tad lower for tournaments. Aprons and tees are cut at 8mm with fairways at 13mm. A cut and collect policy is in place for rough and semi rough with the aim of increasing the biodiversity of flowers and grass varieties. Greens and tees are cut with Toro 3250 triples, fairways are cut with a John Deere 1910 rotary and the rough is maintained with a Toro 5910D. Machinery is bought on a five year rolling lease programme. This allows Paul to update his machinery to more eco-friendly models on a regular basis.
Being a keen golfer himself (current handicap 5) Paul likes to produce fast putting surfaces, so work on the greens is programmed to do just that whilst, at the same time, maintaining the finer grasses. The greens are predominantly sand based USGA style. They receive robust spring and autumn renovations which focus on deep scarification using the Graden, deep spiking with a Verti- drain set to a 275mm, hollow coring and topdressing with an 80/20 sand and soil mix, applying 2-4kg per square metre.
Neither of the courses have any real drainage issues on the fairways or tees due to the free draining characteristics of the soil, which overlies Cotswold stone brash.
The club has invested in irrigation and water storage facilities in recent years. Paul and his staff have built a new 11,000 cubic metre water storage lake, along with upgrading the automated irrigations systems.
Ecology and traditional skills
With the Cotswolds renowned for its mile upon mile of dry stone walls and
Mature compost is produced within six months
Traditional skills such as hedge laying ...
... and dry stone walling, have been taught
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