Golf
Work continues on remodelling the 6th green
“As with any new golf course, it is an evolving landscape and, often, changes need to be made to improve the condition and playability of the course”
from Keeper of the Greens to Director of Golf, went on to explain how the club work hard to meet the Potential Damage Objectives set by Scottish Natural Heritage. These include a ban on chemicals, imported topdressings or unapproved seed varieties, and a restriction on certain working practices on any part of the course, other than greens and tees. Here, Keith and his greenkeeping team can reasonably do what they wish in terms of maintenance operations on these areas.
“It has been a case of building up a good working relationship, and gaining the trust of Scottish Natural Heritage,” explained Keith. “For example, all our topdressings are restricted to materials found on site. The team collect seaweed from the beach, mix it with grass clippings and sand from the dunes. This is left to compost down and then used eighteen months later.” “As with any new golf course, it is an evolving landscape and, often, changes need to be made to improve the condition and playability of the course to meet our guests’ requirements,” explained Keith. “We were particularly concerned about three of our greens - the 14 PC DECEMBER/JANUARY 2012
6th, 8th and 17th - and it is only after listening to feedback from visiting golfers, plus our own observations, that we are able to act. In these three instances, our aim was to increase the number of available pin locations, and to improve bunker strategy and playability of the holes whilst, at the same time, taking the opportunity to solve some problems of sodium rich beach sand blowing on to the 6th green, in particular. With the course’s reputation growing, increased numbers of visiting golfers are forecast for 2012, so making these changes now is simple common sense.” “The rebuilding of greens can often be fraught with problems, with the weather often dictating progress, especially in this corner of Scotland. However, we have been blessed with near perfect weather - little or no wind and bright sunshine. The process was a fairly simple one; strip off the existing turf, put it to one side, excavate and remodel the new green. The old turf was used for target greens on the range, outside of the SSSI, with a new bent/fescue mix turf, supplied by Tillers Turf, used for the replacement greens.” Keith’s team of five, Head
Greenkeeper, Kevin Smith, and
greenkeepers Hugh McPhee, Chris Grogan, Sebastion Zuruwaski and Craig Barr, carried out the work, with the assistance of a local back hoe operator, overseen by Keith, Jimmy and Greg Sherwood of Southworth Developments. Keith’s greenkeeping team is complemented by mechanic, Lucas Mati, and landscape gardener, Stewart Graham. As well as remodelling the greens, the team is also revetting the leading edges of the mainly marram grass ‘blow out’ style bunkers. It was interesting to see how quickly the work was achieved by a dedicated team of young greenkeepers, none of whom had tackled such bunker face works before.
Day to day maintenance
The greens are maintained at 4mm in the summer and are raised to 5.5mm for the winter. They are hand cut daily during the growing season using Toro 1000 mowers and, in the winter, Toro Flex21 triple mowers tend to be used. Surrounds are cut with Toro triples and maintained between 9-12mm. Green speed is kept between 9.5-11 feet, depending on the time of the year and weather conditions. “We use a turf iron to help firm up the
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