Golf
The Greens Team l-r: Scott Eddie, Douglas Sutherland, Connel McKenna, Barry Anderson, Gordon Wood and Chris Barnard
The Scotscraig greenkeepers
Chris Barnard, Golf Course Manager, fifteen months.
Gordon Wood is the 1st Assistant and, at thirty-four, is the longest serving staff member with fifteen years under his belt.
Connel Mckenna (24) is the first of our Assistant Greenkeepers and has been on the greenstaff for six years.
Doug Sutherland (26) joined us in August last year having previously been employed at g-West.
Scott Eddie (21) has been working on the greenstaff for four years and has just completed his SVQ Level 2.
Barry Anderson (18) joined us in April last year having just finished his National Certificate in Greenkeeping.
John Deere which works well for us as the local supplier, Double AA, is only a ten minute drive away should we require anything.
The main improvement we’ve seen is from the inclusion of turf conditioners on the cutting units. They’ve gone a long way in helping us train the sward to become tighter and more close-knit on greens, tees, surrounds and fairways. The Bent on the greens has really been improved by using them regularly. They’ve also meant that this season we’ve had no need to use the verticut/groomer units to do work more aggressively, which has meant less stress on the turf. The fairways have also improved as they are predominantly sheep fescue, which grows in just about every direction but upwards! Moving forward, I would like to extend the
shed slightly to give us more room between machinery for working on them. I would also like to alter the washdown area and fence it off at the same time. This would really
improve the efficiency and tidiness of the area as we could create a separate area for filling and cleaning the sprayer. I would also like to include a four post ramp in the workshop at some point for working on machines. This is near the top of the list, if I’m honest; having used a ramp in New Zealand, I know the time saved working on machines is huge and I’d like us to become as efficient as possible. All servicing and maintenance is carried
out at the course by either the green staff or our local engineer, Brian Forsyth. I’m actually in the process of sorting out further training for the staff as I feel it benefits us having everyone able to do every job. The flexibility would be a welcome asset in such a small team. It was quite apparent to me, whilst in
Kent, that the majority of courses are quite closed off to each other. It is less so here in Fife but, in my opinion, there is a great opportunity for courses local to each other to band together to purchase essential
Maintenance regimes
The greens vary in mowing height from 6mm in winter down to 4mm in summer. From daily mowing in summer, this can drop to as little as once every three weeks in winter where the roller takes over the majority of the work.
In late autumn, we normally verti-drain greens and tees with a 19mm tine to a depth of around 10-11” then follow immediately behind with a smaller ½” tine 3” deep to close the larger holes. A good roll then returns them to a playable level. The greens are usually spiked three times through the season with a narrow gauge solid tine and we sarrel roll in spring.
We don’t do any scarifying on greens, but our new greens mowers have turf conditioners and these are used for the majority of the season; we only really lift them following topdressing.
In the lead up to larger events, we often take the mowing height down 0.25mm and set the turf conditioners to 2mm then double cut and roll. This is done intensively for four days and the results are really good, with the sward
26 I PC AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2016
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