Technical
Ealing Golf Club
Poa Cores, of course!
L Greb Evans MG 110 I PC FEBRUARY/MARCH 2015
ast April, our club decided to construct a chipping green on a bit of scrubland by the 11th century church at Ealing Golf Club. They had been considering a chipping green for a number of years,
but the lack of a suitable site was always an issue. As we were about to head into the golfing season the timing wasn’t perfect, but I’d been pushing for one for several years, so I wasn’t about to say no. Initially, I was excited, but then reality set in. The club wanted the green in play that season, but there were twenty-five trees standing in the way for a start, and no materials or suppliers had been sourced. It was going to be a busy spring! My thoughts turned to how the green would
play in terms of quality and performance. Ealing’s greens are classed as old ‘clay based push ups’, with many over a hundred years old. They were designed to ‘hold water’; as it was pre-irrigation days, keeping them alive in the summer was the main focus. If we added a
Twenty-five trees had to be cleared
When Ealing Golf Club decided they wanted a chipping green on a bit of scrubland, it was left to Course Manager Greg Evans to come up with a plan. Given that the time frame was just fourteen weeks - and at the beginning of the playing season - what was his modus operandi? Poa cores, of course!
brand new full USGA specification green, it would be completely alien to the other greens on the course and stand out like a sore thumb. However, it would be irresponsible to build a new green identical to the 100-year-old ones. We needed a design that would allow the greens to play as closely as possible to the main greens without compromising their drainage capabilities. In the past, I have designed greens that were along the USGA lines, but tweaked things such as shallow rootzone levels to perch the water table a bit higher and give the green a slightly ‘softer’ feel compared to full USGA guidelines. These worked well, allowing the new green to sit quite comfortably with older greens. Another issue was the type of grass species
to be used. I have always joked that the greens at Ealing are 99% Poa with a token 1% bent. The reality is actually not too far from that. Our site is clay-based parkland and Poa annua thrives in the wet, dark conditions. The new area for the
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