What have we got here?
James Grundy, Head Greenkeeper at Reaseheath College, is carrying out important trials to determine the merits of two totally different programmes to improve the quality of the greens, one biological and one synthetic
W
hat have we got here then? It is a thought that will be familiar to anyone who has found themselves responsible
for any new facility. The facility in question is the 9 hole golf course at Reaseheath College, Cheshire. The club was officially founded in 1987, but there had been sports turf and some elements of a golf course being taught and played upon for some time before this. Dennis Mortram, a name well known to a great many within the industry, was the driving force behind the inception of the golf course, and the layout changed a number of times over the course of the late 80s and 90s. At one time there were six holes,
three of which you had to play twice, before Dennis was able, bit by bit, to
claw more farm land away from the agriculture department. As more land became available, holes were built in sets of three and, as a result, the location of the first tee changed regularly; four times that I can remember!
In these early days, the students studying for their HND literally built the course themselves and, each time work was undertaken, different construction methods were employed. Of the current ten greens, the oldest is approaching twenty-five years old and the youngest is around seven years old. All the construction methods are
different - some only slightly and some drastically. From clay push-up to pure sand over limestone drainage carpet, we’ve got the lot. This menagerie of construction methods is partly
deliberate, for the purpose of education, and partly a result of numerous people building or rebuilding greens at different times with different ideas and varying budgets. Today, it is a fully EGU affiliated Par 62, 9 hole course comprising ten greens measuring 3668 yards, with 400 members . So, what have we got here then? Certainly, in this case, a very apt question. The answer to that question began in the most obvious way. By asking questions of my Assistant, Simon Hewitt, who has worked on the course since he was sixteen, and by taking a good close look. It soon became apparent that, whilst good things had been undertaken over the past few years - no use of fungicides, some organic fertilisers, sensible heights of cut, for example - for various reasons one or
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