Educational Establishments
Myerscough College
School for Groundrels
At Myerscough College in Preston, John Berry leads the way. Not many Head Groundsmen are also Head Greenkeepers. And not many Head Greenkeepers get the chance to manage every type of tee-to-green construction under the sun. Jake Barrow reports
M
yerscough College’s nine‐ hole golf course is predominantly for the students education, however they also have private
members as well. Regular meetings take place between golf teaching staff and a private members committee so everyones needs are catered for.
The students include some of the country’s most promising amateur golfers. They train, as has long been the custom in many parts of the US, to be qualified as PGA Professionals and move on to either play in the major professional leagues, or to take up residence as a club’s Pro Shop runner. For them, the variety of holes is a pleasure. For the greenkeeping and groundsmanship students, however, it is simply a valuable tool to better ready them for whichever type of course they may end up.
The ground beneath the college was originally waterlogged farmland, but the golf course was constructed with no expense spared, and the holes are split between parkland, marshland, links and even experimental surfaces used at very few other clubs.
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This is a delight for the college’s Head Greenkeeper John Berry, as it would be something of a pleasure for most greenkeepers to experience, but beneath the top level will always lie the same difficulties, such as a tendency to develop moisture‐ activated diseases.
John, 61, said: “Fungicides are the important issue for me, because when we get our students back, that’s in the middle of September, and they want the golf course from then until May.”
“And we can’t have scars cropping up for them or what have you, so it needs to be perfect right through what is basically the football season.”
“We don’t really have a normal golf season, which is why we don’t do normal renovations. We certainly don’t do one big rip‐apart job at the same time of year all the other courses are doing it.”
“Over the years, through Gary Potter at ALS, I’ve got these fungicide packages that are designed to be used at specific times of year, and they’ve been useful.”
“We’ve had times when a lot of people in the area have been telling me they’ve been having a lot of problems with disease, and
We don’t really have a normal golf season, which is why we don’t do normal renovations. We certainly don’t do one big rip-apart job at the same time of year all the other courses are doing it
108 I PC DECEMBER/JANUARY 2018
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