Golf
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We have Tree Preservation Orders across the site too. We need to go down a couple of avenues to get clearance permission
they’re ready to take the course quality to the next level.”
“We have Tree Preservation Orders across the site too. We need to go down a couple of avenues to get clearance permission: Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust and Barnet Council.”
“Anything that is safe and minor, though, we try to do in‐house. This is improving our airflow. A couple of greens are shady and sit wet, but that can partly be helped just by clearing brambles or whatever.” Hampstead Golf Club is spread across just shy of 80 acres, and takes a standard 72 strokes to complete as a double 9‐hole round.
Chris explains that the course presents a decent challenge, because the par fours are long and tend to be into the wind or uphill. The entryway is narrow and tucked away between the surrounding mansions: “It’s been referred to as a hidden gem, because nobody really knows it’s here until they research it.”
Chris and the team would like to undertake more grinding and servicing closer to home, which is why he feels leasing is a good option.
It’s all about positive progression and communication with the staff and membership, because, at first, they needed education on the benefits of aeration
“It’s a bit of strain on me to do it in‐house, so we usually have to outsource it anyway. We’d love someone to come in and do it as part of a package.”
“Currently, George Brown’s look after our Baroness equipment, and we’ll have Toro maintain their own equipment, with John Deere looking after theirs too.”
“I have a good relationship with one of our suppliers, who supplies feed for the greens, so we don’t need agronomic help beyond that.”
“He doesn’t claim to be an agronomist. However, he will come in and do soil tests once or twice a year, and we work on the bespoke programme together accordingly.” “I try to feed with foliar every seven days, just to eliminate any peaks and troughs of growth. The greens are the healthiest they’ve been since I got here.”
28 I PC FEBRUARY/MARCH 2018
“I am now in control of our nitrogen content, because the feed is mixable. If I think it needs some nitrogen, I’ll incorporate that into the seaweed mix. If not, I can dilute. That has worked really well.” The greens and tees are clay push‐up. Two have probably been renovated in the last thirty years, according to Chris, to USGA specification.
“These are drier greens than the others. But, in 2016, we installed additional passive capillary drainage in our 1st and 4th greens, which completely changed them. They were the worst ones, often flooded. It changed them overnight, and they are as dry as the USGA‐spec.”
“We need to address five more greens with that PC drainage, although that changes what we can do to them aeration‐wise, because the rope is pulled through just below the surface ‐ we still use things like verti‐drains and Air2G2s, but we don’t go as deep.”
They own a ProCore, which Chris described as “the best bit of kit you can get for aeration”. They regularly (at least thirty‐ five times in 2017) use 8mm solid tines, with help coming in around once every three months to fulfil a contract with an Air2G2. “We try to vary it a bit. We go with 8mm solids, after which I don’t mind rolling and tend to do so straight away, because then the players don’t even notice, which is why we can get away with doing that so regularly.”
“I’ve also done a couple of micro‐cores ‐ 8mm again, but taking stuff out of the profile. We have a lot of organic matter, so it’s good to remove some of that from the top half‐inch.”
They also deal with this with their own verti‐cutting units. These are taken down to 5mm below the surface, but Chris hopes that they can use a Graden and feels the green require it.
His wish would be to Graden the greens to replace thatch with sand. This, he said, “would be something I’d have to sell to the
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