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During my first season here, the greens surprisingly held a bit of water, so the first thing I did was to hollow tine to four inches and topdress with the 70/30 mix


T


his is all part of an effort the club has undergone for a few years, as the website states: ‘… a programme of course improvement and bunker


renovation and re-siting has put more of a premium on accuracy with approach shots too.’


In such a situation, the club has wisely maintained strong staff numbers for an 18-hole course. Including Frazer, there are seven of them, and two of these deputise when he’s administrating.


The land, bordered by super-luxury houses on a main road into Ashby-de-la- Zouch, is ancient estate land, which is the reason it needs a high degree of broader- spectrum maintenance.


Its flora is huge and ancient. There is an attractive, and ecologically promising, Sweet Chestnut tree which Frazer estimates spans several metres in diameter.


Grasslands bordering on the roughs and fringes are wild and interesting, which acts


as a tool for altering course playability. Frazer said: “That is how the course used to look years ago, from when James Braid designed it. Some members like it; some don’t. One of the biggest benefits, though, is something we all have to think about these days, which is ecology. More grassland is good for nature.”


“BIGGA’s local chairman is visiting soon to discuss ecological issues, including that cherry tree. He wants to have a look at this huge tree as a location for projects which might increase the prevalence of wildlife around the course.”


“We have some muntjacs which spend their time by a pond just beside the course, and would like to encourage more animals to make their homes here.”


“Because the woodland areas running over the old Willesley Hall Estate are so vast, it would be a shame to continue to leave them untapped, so we’d like to take advice on that too.”


Frazer has overseen a plan to grow these grassy areas, which appear dominated by a long variety of meadow-grass, to control out-of-bounds borders and because they’re great aesthetically. This has reduced fuel and labour costs from cutting.


This is all bound up by some clever initial 1920s design work by Braid, who took what was an unusually long and narrow site and designed a figure-of-eight pattern to make the most of the space.


That said, it is a large course. Those up-and-down parkland holes run through around 210 acres of undulating woodland, which is one reason the course’s paths have to be in good condition.


Frazer arranged for slate rubble to be laid across around a kilometre of pathways, which has also helped the staff to traverse the course more quickly; important when your clubhouse is two miles, as the crow flies, from a couple of your tees and greens. Not long after this design, of course, another war broke out. During this time, the fairways were, instead, used as vegetable patches for the war effort.


After this, the course was expanded a 24 PC October/November 2018


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