The vagaries of the English weather are playing havoc with the growing in process at one of the country’s newest courses, St Ives in
Cambridgeshire.
Laurence Gale MSc met up with Course Manager, Phil Gates MG, to find out how the land lies or, should that be, cracks?
S
everal weeks of prolonged snow cover through December and early January, followed by a very dry March and April, has meant that many golf
clubs are desperate for some favourable weather to help get their course set up and performing well for their members and customers. As I write, the first three weeks of May have also been devoid of rain, especially on the eastern side of England.
One club that is desperate for a change in the weather is St Ives (Hunts) Golf Club, near Cambridge, a brand new inland links style course that opened last May, at the start of another summer of drought like conditions in East Anglia! Built on heavy fen land clay soils, and exposed to prevailing winds, it desperately needs some rain to stimulate growth out on the course. As I walk the course with Course Manager, Phil Gates MG, it is immediately evident how the weather patterns of the past fourteen months have played havoc with the growing in period. “The recent dry spring has affected the course considerably,” says Phil. “It’s more like the end of July rather than the beginning of May. We desperately need some rain.” If we have another summer like last year, we’ll be flat out just trying to keep the course alive.” “The greens, tees and fairways are holding up pretty well, thanks to irrigation and hand watering. But, there are large tracts of the course that are drying out so much that the clay soil is shrinking, leaving large cracks in the surface big enough to get your fist down! Most of the wetland areas are also drying out and the level of the reservoir has dropped several feet.”
It certainly has been a testing couple of years for the greenkeeping staff, who have been working hard to maintain a brand new course that is still growing in.
Phil came to the course in April 2008 to help oversee the building of the greens, tees and fairways - most of the shaping and large soil moving had been completed before he arrived. He has worked at several clubs and has gained a lot of experience in overseeing construction projects, notably at the K Club in Ireland and Trentham Golf Club in Staffordshire. He also worked with Laurence Pithie MG, learning, in the process, a great deal about management and how to develop staff.
“I have always been drawn towards managing a links course so, when the offer came to work at St Ives, I packed my bags and headed to Cambridgeshire to take up my dream job. But the weather has made it more of a challenge than I would have hoped for.” The course architect was Cameron Sinclair, who worked with Charles Mador to deliver a very challenging golf course. The project is the culmination of
many years of effort by the members of the St Ives Golf Club (founded in 1923), who were successful in selling a portion of their old nine hole golf course to a major house builder and used the proceeds to purchase a new site outside of the town to construct this ambitious new facility. Working within a budget of £3 million they managed to transform a flat and windswept East Anglian landscape into a challenging new eighteen hole, par seventy-two golf course, with a beautiful new luxury clubhouse - built to resemble a cluster of farm buildings around a courtyard - and separate practice facilities. Well over 250,000 cubic metres of earth was moved in order to create the course. The remarkable thing is that it looks as if it has been there forever. “The challenge of the site was to
create a unique club with a strong individual character and a welcoming atmosphere,” explains Phil. The involvement of Titleist Acushnet in the practice facilities has provided the opportunity to lift the quality of these far above those normally found at a members club. The ambition and involvement of the club officers has been the key factor in the new club reaching such high standards. Titleist Acushnet now have their
European Headquarters at St. Ives, and have worked with the club and the architects to create a new purpose-made, custom-fit centre, with the focus on practicing professionals and serious golfers.
Phil’s early appointment meant that he was able to oversee the construction of the greens, tees and fairways. “The greens are full USGA specification, sown with a mono culture of velvet bent grasses, 50% Avalon and 50% Vespa. Greens and tees surrounds are pure fescue mixes. Tee tops and approaches are sown with 15% dwarf rye and 85% fescue grasses to help cope with the wear. The fairways are a 30% dwarf rye, 70% fescue blend, the roughs are 95% fescue and 5% bent.” “We’ve been doing lots of overseeding to help maintain a high grass density on all key playing surfaces,” says Phil. “However, due to the high clay content of the underlying soil, access to greens, tees and fairways has often been difficult in the winter months when the ground conditions deteriorate. Getting heavy machinery around the course has been challenging and not always possible. The wet ground conditions also made it difficult for the golf buggies to get around the course.” To help alleviate the problem, the club has invested in thirteen kilometres (8.08 miles) of free draining, artificial grass pathway that meanders its way around the course, and which also has its own pop up watering system with over 900 sprinkler heads.
The course has a fully automated irrigation system that can water greens,
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