Custom-grown turf meets Wentworth’s precise requirements for renovated West Course.
Report by Ellie Tait
Best for the West!
W
hen Wentworth’s West Course closed to play on 1st June this year, so began the final phase of the club’s
most ambitious project in twenty-five years, the modernisation of all eighteen greens to USGA specification. Despite its tournament pedigree, and enduring popularity as a classic Colt course, a renovation programme began in 2005 which involved the rebunkering and lengthening of certain holes, to ensure the course continues to challenge tomorrow’s golfing elite in the way the architect originally intended when it was first built in 1926. The current team of project consultants, comprising club member and former World Matchplay Champion, Ernie Els, and his course design team, European Tour agronomists Jack McMillan and Richard Stillwell, Club Agronomist George Shiels and BMW PGA Championship Tournament Director David Garland, agreed it was
imperative to improve the putting surface to ensure maximum performance all year round. Sports turf contractors, MJ Abbott Limited, were appointed to carry out the work under the supervision of Golf Courses Manager, Chris Kennedy. Over the past four months, all eighteen greens and greens’ complexes have been reconstructed while greenside and fairways bunkers have been reviewed, with some remodelled and others removed and re-sited in order to enhance play.
Each and every facet of such a project
requires a substantial amount of planning and research. Time constraints created by the club’s commitment to hosting the BMW PGA Championship in May 2010 meant that seeding the greens wasn’t an option open to them, so it was in June 2008 when Tillers Turf Company was approached by the STRI’s Jeff Perris, the original project consultant. Tillers has been growing turf since
1983 at its nurseries near Lincoln for both sport and landscaping, and golf has always been an important sector for them. “We were asked to attend a meeting
at Wentworth last June and, following in-depth discussion about their requirements, were asked to submit a proposal for the project team’s consideration”, recalls managing director, Tim Fell. “Unusually, the agronomists’ specification was for 100% Browntop bent turf. The two standard types of turf we grow for greens are fescue/bent and creeping bent, but there was no reason not to consider growing straight colonial bent. The principal requirement was for us ‘to supply Poa- free turf’ and, from past experience, we had total confidence we could meet that brief.”
Chris Kennedy explained that it was
predominantly recommendations from those ‘in the know’ about turf that led him to select Tillers. “I’ve bought turf
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