Apart from a single contractor/digger, the staff carried out all the work on the new lake. It is now maturing into a very pleasing visual element, not to mention golfing challenge
During the summer months of 2009
the greens were cut to 3.75mm, no ironing or rolling, but plenty of mechanical work such as verticutting and micro-tining being carried out when gaps in the golfing calendar allowed. The results in this, the first year, have been encouraging with chemical spraying reduced by 10% and fewer applications of fertiliser. The greens are now at an acceptable level of consistency and speed. The environmental impact is yet to be assessed.
Greens Project - Drainage
Last winter the club embarked on a greens drainage improvement project with the intention of laying herring bone drainage systems on nine greens. The work commenced in November 2008 and, whilst six greens were completed on time, a prolonged period of bad weather
meant the remaining three were deferred until this winter. The average time taken for each green, from commencement to being back in play, was two weeks. As a prologue the drainage runs on the
greens settled down in time for the commencement of the season. Scarcroft staff, with the exception of a contracted digger, carried out all the work. The three apprentices are now fully conversant with the methods and application of turf lifting, digging out, levelling, laying pipe work and the re- covering with gravel and rootzone material and now consider themselves experts at turf laying on greens.
Equipment
The team use mainly Toro equipment, with the usual mix of triples for greens, tees, bankings and surrounds. A Toro 6500 is used on fairways, a tractor towed
rotary for semi rough and a zero turn for other areas. Other equipment used for project work includes trenchers and gravel/sand banders. They also have a ‘back-actor’ and front bucket attachments for large earthmoving operations or tree stump removal, again allowing them to take on project work themselves. Some of the newest pieces of plant
purchased are a Trilo BL 960 blower and Weidenmann Super 500, which have proved essential for leaf removal from fairways (given the number of deciduous trees present) and the cleaning up of recently cut wet fairways and approaches. The club are planning to buy a digger during 2009/10 to enable them to be more independent of outside contractors and to carry out their own drainage and irrigation channel requirements. The latest equipment to be purchased are two Bernhard grinding machines to
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