Golf
Daniel Clarke
‘stupid questions’. That mindset has to change. I keep saying to the lads, don’t be scared to come forward, the door is always open, If you have any questions, technical or otherwise, please don’t hesitate.” “We’ve had a number of guest speakers during the last year, who gave advice on everything from compost to nutritional information, to weather patterns. I like to get my staff involved. This year, we have PGA rules and course set-up planned, plus fungicide products and use, which will be presented by Mark Hunt from Headland. We also have a CV writing workshop, seed storage and grass idents, we always set up a questionnaire for the team and offer a prize for the most correct answers. It’s quite a wide and diverse training programme,” confesses Angus “We’ve started to introduce compost tea.
I like the biology. I like the idea of doing something good. I had some pretty good success with it at my previous place. Dan Clarke, my deputy, is in charge of the brewing. One of our guest speakers explained the theory and offered training for the lads. We have been using it on some greens and approaches. It doesn’t cost a lot, just takes a bit of time to brew, but the results have been encouraging so far.”
“I believe we have a responsibility to
reduce our chemicals and fertiliser inputs. Golf courses used to get bad press, but the industry is slowly changing and we are becoming more sensitive to our environment and we are being challenged to manage our natural resources more efficiently.” “We tend to rely more on liquid applications of foliar feeds, as opposed to granular applications, using iron sulphates, chelated irons and lower NPK in spray solution in order to maintain colour to try and manage the courses, again with customers in mind. The Belfry does require intensive management because of the nature of the venue. It’s also a traditionally manicured golf course that has to be presented to the highest of standards.” Green management is one that Angus is
keen to continue. “We have a compound, so that all our cores and anything else compostable can be recycled. We mix leaf litter and cores and use it to mulch beds,
22 PC DECEMBER/JANUARY 2014
Dave Cole, Colin Barksby and Chris Minton
borders and hanging baskets. All waste water is treated and fed into our reservoirs where we have Otterbine pumps aerifiying, which is used for irrigation.” “We also have our own bees; Dan Clarke
and Terry Jessef are our beekeepers. We had two yields last summer providing over seventeen kilos of honey from two hives. Eddie Ainsworth, the Head Greenkeeper from the Avro Golf Club in Cheshire, gave us some advice. He is a really passionate guy who gives us lots of support. When he first came, we had an initial query about one of the hives. We appeared to have two queens in one hive, so we transferred one to the other hive because, let’s face it, you can’t have two women living in one house! That second hive is colonising quite well now, and that is thanks to Eddie. I can’t take any credit for the bees, because it wasn’t my idea, but it’s nice to have that in our greenkeeping portfolio. I know we only have two hives, but its a start.” “We have started looking at areas of the PGA course where we might introduce wildflower mixes, gorse and whins, and are also considering adopting Syngenta’s Operation Pollinator. One of our senior greenkeepers, Matt Whittock, is really passionate about ecology and he has been making bird boxes in his own time and putting them out on the course.” “This winter, we are focusing on the Derby course. We plan to give this small but challenging course its own identity. We’ll be changing the bunker design and location to alter the strategy of the holes. The aim is to make them a lot easier for both the golfer to play out of and us to maintain, whilst improving their aesthetic nature. We have already constructed the bunkers in house, using our project team assisted by the greenkeepers.” “So, as you can probably tell, it’s been a very busy time, but it’s been good. Following in the footsteps of Kenny Mackay was always going to be a challenge. People are always going to come into a golf course and manage it differently to their predecessor and put their little twist on the courses, and that’s the reason it is so exciting. I’m very lucky in that I have good friends in the industry who give me advice and support when I need it.” After concluding my interview with
Angus, I met up with my host for the day, Head Mechanic, Chris Minton. He commandeered a golf buggy and we set off for a quick tour of the three courses. We first met Dan Clarke, one of Angus’s deputies, who was overseeing some hollow coring work. I was surprised how quickly they were working, aiming to complete at least five greens a day. The greens were being cored using a Toro ProCore 648 fitted with 8mm tines going to a depth of 100mm.
Dan has been at The Belfry for two years. He was trained at Myerscough and gained industry experience working on golf courses in the United States and at the All England Tennis Club at Wimbledon. Several greenkeeping staff were on hand to help clean up the cores. The greens were then lightly topdressed with Chelmsford 28 sand and dragmatted into the playing surface. The ongoing plan is to do this work two or three times during the winter months, weather permitting, to help firm up the greens. In charge of the topdressing was Jamie
Brookes, the Deputy Course Manager, who oversees the work on all three courses. Jamie is one of the longest serving members of the greenkeeping team, having been at the club over twelve years. In total there are forty-five grounds staff, including gardeners, mechanics and irrigation specialists, with a total of thirty- eight greenkeepers maintaining the three courses. Each course has a dedicated Head Greenkeeper. We next met Duncan Brooks, the club’s
irrigation specialist, who has taken over the role of looking after the system across all three golf courses, working in tandem with the three head greenkeepers. Duncan has been at The Belfry for sixteen years and his experience of the layout and topography of the courses, plus the vagaries of the local weather, means he is ideally suited to manage the watering requirements of the resort. Water is sourced from two large
reservoirs. The Brabazon has irrigation for greens, tees, fairways, some rough and approaches, whereas the PGA has irrigation for greens, tees and fairways, whilst the Derby only has irrigation to tees and greens. The systems are calibrated on
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