Golf
With fourteen lakes in all, water shortages are rare!
Wood bought the estate, are Graham’s right hand men. Alan Jones, golf course mechanic, in his
eighth year here, undertakes all maintenance and machinery repairs. “We only put out specialist work, like fuel injection systems and grinding,” Graham explains. Assistant greenkeeper Dan Brown (no, not
that one!), has been on the books for five years. He’s on NVQ Level 2 year 1 at Warwickshire College and deputises for Graham on some tasks. “I’m qualified in spraying but, when I’m away, I need another qualified sprayer and, when Dan has qualified, he can step into my shoes.” Graham has high hopes for Dan. “He came
in as a greenkeeper - keen and eager to progress - so we’re giving him his chance to do just that.” Tree work falls to assistant greenkeeper
Ryan Taylor, who has a chainsaw qualification, whilst fellow assistant greenkeeper Dan Moore is a man for all seasons, taking on pretty much any task, including an element of irrigation maintenance that’s dear to Graham’s heart. “I’m passionate about irrigation, it’s my first love,” he reveals, “so do a lot of it myself. We have a small wall-mounted controller system
“
at the moment, but we need to look at a PC- based one in the next three or four years.” “Grass needs water to live, but you do not
need to water a green to make it soft, and overwatering can prove far more detrimental to the course, creating shallow, weak-rooted grasses, which dry off, then require watering again - a vicious circle. Controlled, sensible application and irrigation is the way, whilst data from weather forecasts can pre-empt things.” With fourteen lakes in all, Bransford is not short of a drop of water. The club has rights to abstract up to 55,000 gallons annually just in case they need topping up. Water pumped into the large holding lake by the side of the first fairway is then pumped to the irrigation system before passing to the other lakes. Plans are afoot to install an aerator for the
first lake to agitate and oxygenate the water used on the course. “Mainly carp populate the lakes now as we
believe other species were stolen some time ago,” says Graham. “Moorhens and ducks swim among the rushes and reeds and we enjoy our Canada geese, but they have to be managed.” “Predatory scaring” is the solution, employing a rather quirky-looking
“environmentally safe” piece of kit called a Goosenator. “When you attract a flock of up to 200 of the geese onto the fairway, you have a problem, what with their droppings and everything - limiting numbers to ten or eleven is far more pleasant all round.” Although a parkland course, fairways and
greens are not overly sheltered by trees. Most of the stock was planted as saplings when the course was constructed, so they are only twenty-five years old and still developing. “Some mature oaks line the course,” says Graham, “and heavy woodland borders the estate boundary.” “Most of our tree stock is deciduous - beech, silver birch, cherry, rowan, ash and oak mostly. The cherry blossom is lovely when in flower and the fruit is picked by the hotel staff to use in dishes.” Bransford cannot escape the usual
problem of autumn leaf fall, but this year the job will be made that much less labour intensive. “The blower we bought recently will allow us to clear leaves into the undergrowth and the difference in presentation will be massive,” Graham notes with relish. Tree overhang can encourage disease outbreaks as many know only too well, but
Moorhens and ducks swim among the rushes and reeds and we enjoy our Canada geese, but they have to be managed
34 I PC AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2017
The Bransford team l-r: Alan Jones, Ryan Taylor, Graham Wallace, Dan Brown and Dan Moore
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