Summer Sports - Bowls
“I now realise that a willing soldier is usually the best that most bowls clubs can hope to attract - anything resembling experience is a bonus”
Mark Allen, Amenity Land Solutions
greenkeeeping, and certainly ‘does it his way’ as far as decision-making is concerned. I asked Eric, what the members of ‘The
George’ expect from their home green? “Pace,” he replied, “Our lads want quick pace downhill and a significant weight difference going back the other way.” To briefly explain the rudiments of a
‘crown green’, in contrast to a ‘level green’, its contours can take any form. Whilst a ‘true’ crown green would have a convex crown in the centre, and equally graded sloping sides to each edge, the reality is that a ‘true’ crown green almost certainly does not exist. What do exist are many hundreds of greens all completely different in shape, size and topography. You will understand, in this context, that ‘home advantage’ is everything, as the ‘home-ster’ will know where to ‘attack’ the jack (uphill) and where to play for ‘run’ (downhill).
“It’s the weight differences that win us games,” continues Eric. “Often the weight difference can be four yards slower going up the hill - that’s what catches the visitors out.”
So, that means that all home bowlers
like the green to be very quick, I presume? “No, not at all,” Eric explains. “If the green is too quick, too freakish playing down the slopes, then we lose the advantage that a pronounced weight difference provides.”
Not too quick, but not too slow! So, ‘consistency’ is what the top players at the top club expect? “ Yes, and whilst achieving consistency is a difficult part of the greenkeeper’s art, it is more achievable these days with an improved standard of equipment at our disposal. The evolution of our store shed inside ten years has seen us go from owning just an old mower and a cyclone spreader, to now running a full irrigation system, a maintenance programme built around the Dennis F510 cassette machine and end of season renovations that, in the last few years, have involved golf course standard equipment, such as the Verti-drain and the Graden machines.”
Eric’s policy of never cutting below 5mm, a fortnightly rotational regime of verticutting, pencil tining through the playing season and the ability to apply water evenly and to a decent depth, means that ‘The George’ are now achieving a surface that even many a golf club would be proud of.
Whilst an end of season Masters competition delays the timing of Eric’s autumn renovations, both he and the membership acknowledge that the income is vital in order to keep the club solvent. The competition attracts bowlers from all over the country, so the pressure is on to make their ‘road trip’ an enjoyable one. Interestingly, the expectations of the visiting bowler are usually quite different from that of the home members. “Competition bowlers just want a true surface, a fair green and good facilities when they arrive. Pace is not such an issue and, certainly, it is almost unheard of for a losing player to blame his defeat on the speed of the bowling green.” This gives a revealing insight into the whole subject of ‘bowlers expectations’. In my experience, winning players rarely complain that the green was not to their liking on the day of a victory. Losing players on the other hand ... now that’s anther story. Perhaps, bowlers need to be more honest about their own performance or, perhaps, more realistic about their own ability, as it’s easy to blame outside influences on poor results. I’m aware that we are now straying into areas marked ‘human nature’ and, as I’m no Sigmund Freud, I’ll leave it there!
Having known Eric for a long time, I’m always impressed by his interest in turf culture, and his willingness to explore new technologies. Last season, for example, he trialled the growth regulator ‘PrimoMaxx’ with fantastic results. “In terms of thickening the sward and
reducing the sheer volume of grass clippings, PrimoMaxx worked very well - I’d say reducing the amount of grass removed per cut from two boxes to around half a box. The affordability of a product like this means that we can achieve results today that we could only dream about back in the 1970s, when I first became interested in bowling greens.”
Along with PrimoMaxx, regular applications of wetting agent are another relatively new development in ‘crown green land’. Eric likes to mix and match the best of these new technologies with the overriding basic principles of soil science that have stood the test of time. “Ultimately, without the green, there is no club. We’ve lost too many greens over the last few years to be complacent, so my view is let’s give this thing every help we
can.”
I leave Eric (well he throws me out because he’s got work to do - “can’t stand here chatting to you all day”), and head a few miles down the road to West Bromwich to catch up with another star of the Crown green maintenance fraternity, Alan Bentley. Well known to bowlers nationally -
largely for his organisation of the annual ‘West Bromwich Football Supporters Bowling Club Open’ - Alan wears several of the ‘important hats’ within his club and, to many people, he is ‘Mr West Brom’.
As a bowler, Alan is up there with the best of them (several Warwick & Worcester County caps bear testament to this) and, latterly as a greenkeeper, Alan’s attention to detail and perfectionist nature is proving a big hit with the membership. Whilst Eric at ‘The George’ has an end of season tournament to contend with, Alan has the opposite situation - a pre- season event. Since 1978, ‘The West Brom’ Open has attracted entrants from far and wide and, whilst most greenkeepers are still dusting off their mowers and beginning to think about the new season, Alan is in ‘full-on’ maintenance mode by the end of February.
Each weekend throughout March, West
Brom play host to sixty-four players, each competing in up to three qualifying games to reach a grand finals day. That’s a lot of foot traffic at a difficult time of year for the turf, yet Alan’s green never fails to meet bowler’s expectations. So, just how does he do it? “We’ve got a good sub-structure,” says Alan, “even though the green is approaching one hundred years old. The soil is quite light and free draining, so moving moisture through the profile is rarely a problem. Given that a dry soil warms up quicker than a wet one, the make up of the green tends to ensure that the grass copes well with whatever the winter has thrown at it.” When asked why greens have improved so much in the last decade, Alan is quick to cite affordability of good equipment as the overriding factor. “Installing irrigation was an ‘overnight improvement’ to the way the green could be managed. Take away the potential nightmare of severe drought stress and, suddenly, we knew the green would only ever continue to improve from then on. Prior to this, lots
FEBRUARY/MARCH 2012 PC 77
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