GOLF


At the moment, I’m happy with the water


Club Championship


levels in the reservoir for this time of year, normally by the end of the summer it will be almost empty


water wasn’t too salty. When I visited BTME this year, I spoke to a few companies about wetting agent programmes for fairways. The idea is to not let the fairways get to a stage where they get severely damaged in the drought, leaving us with nothing. Then, in November, it rains for four months without being able to establish grass. With the footfall, it just turns to mud and then you get the weeds and moss coming in, so it is a constant battle. We are just about there with the greens and tees, it’s now fairways that have moved up the priority list.” When the 18-hole parkland course was built, it had seventy-two bunkers which were Hawtree-designed, big American style bunkers with steep faces. They have become unsustainable to manage, so Nathan and his team have started to remove and reduce the size of them. “Over the years, we have managed to reduce the number down to sixty-two; ten less. On top of that, the remaining ones have been reduced by half, or a third in places. The main aim for


this project was to fi ll in the bunkers that were not in play, remove the steep faces that cause the general issues of washout/ contamination and not being able to keep the sand on the faces, therefore reducing labour costs.”


Nathan feels the course has an excessive amount of original trees and is working towards reducing the numbers. “We have put an ongoing management plan together, so everybody is on the same page and understands why we are doing it. We have signifi cant Ash dieback damage, as many of them were planted before we fi rst opened. This has been good in a way, as it as gives us the perfect excuse to thin out these plantations.”


“Originally, the designers planted tens of thousands of trees and they expected 60-70% to take, but we had a 100% success rate and, obviously, now they are too close together. Since I started, the priority was to remove the trees which were shading areas around the greens, tees and parts of


PC October/November 2020


29


“


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132