GOLF
prep. But then, even for that, we’ve looked at other ways of getting the greens into tournament condition, but they’re never really far away from it anyway, and that’s part of the key. You don’t have to do too much work to get them in tournament condition. You generally only need to up the frequency of cut and do a bit more hand mowing.” For Mark, bringing the course on the way he has is all about everything gelling together. Everything from the type of fertiliser to how wide the greenkeepers turn when cutting makes a difference, and it isn’t just the golf specific areas such as fairways and greens that he concentrates on. The club was named the Environmental Golf Club of the Year in 2019, and maintaining the wider ecology of the land is important to the members, the club and Mark. The course is situated between two nature reserves, Hazelwood Marsh and North Warren RSPB and hosts annual course walks for members that are always oversubscribed. Despite the link between wildlife and golf performance not being initially obvious, Mark believes that every aspect has its part to play when it comes to
the success of the course. “We do invest a lot of time and effort into it, so it is nice to have it recognised, but I certainly don’t do it for that. I always took part in the Golf Environment Awards because I thought it was good for the industry. It’s a showcase for the good environmental work that is done and that is the important part about it. It’s not whether you win or not, it’s about the fact you are demonstrating to people outside of the industry that golf can be really, really good for the environment.” “And we have a great working relationship here with the Wildlife Trust and others. Suffolk Wildlife Trust come along and give us some advice, and we are a county wildlife site, so they are very interested about what goes on here.” “To me personally, it’s very important and, to the club, I think it is important too because it’s a heathland golf course and it’s part of the character of it. There are a lot of members here and lots of them are very interested in the wildlife and there’s always quite a bit of chat about what’s around, especially when the nightingales are singing
along the woodland edge in May. Everybody loves it.”
“Even those golfers who would profess not to be interested in the wildlife and things like that, you can be sure that at some level they are enjoying the bird song in the spring and the fact that there are some wildflowers in the rough and semi-rough. So, again, it’s a different focus. Our semi-rough in the spring will be full of sheep’s sorrel, which a lot of golf courses might say is a weed, but for us it’s part of the spring look of the course, that red tinge to it, and it plays well.” “You get good lies in it, it's not like its big cabbages you’re dealing with. It’s part and parcel of running a place like this, it’s about everything adding up, it’s not just greens, fairways and bunkers, we are maintaining the whole site to create an experience for the members and visitors. It’s another example of how things are interrelated in that if we don’t manage the gorse, then rabbit numbers increase dramatically and then we’d get a lot of rabbit damage on the fairways and scraping in bunkers and all the work that is involved in that.” “I don’t really separate out the
Even those golfers who would profess not to be interested in the wildlife, you can be sure that at some level they are
”
enjoying the bird song in the spring and the fact that there are some wildflowers in the rough and semi- rough
PC October/November 2020 39
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