GOLF
The eighteen-hole course is built on an old farmer’s fi elds and, up at the top end of the course, is an old tin mine. “The soil profi le on what was agricultural land is perfect but, when you get to the top, it becomes clay with shale in places. There’s also a lot of undulations due to the old mine shafts.” Over the years, the greenkeeping team has worked hard to improve the soil profi le of the greens and the way they play. “We have a mixture of greens. Some of them were just cut out of the ground seventy years ago and are very clayey. The others were built from the ground up with proper foundations thirty years ago. We have carried out a lot of deep aeration, added tonnes of sand and built drains into the ones which were mown out. I feel we have now got to a point where they are all pretty much even.”
The Engine House at the 3rd hole
The Watermation irrigation system is now thirty years old and is starting to cause Vince a lot of headaches. “It is quite delicate; so far this year we have fi xed fi ve water leaks! We recently replaced all the old sprinklers with Rainbird heads, which has made the system much more effi cient and they are a lot easier
to adjust. We have irrigation on most tees and all greens, but nothing on the fairways.” “We collect our water from the old mine shaft at the top of the course in the engine house. The water is then extracted via a pump into a big tank, which came from one of the clay pits around here. It holds about two hours’ worth of water and takes three to four hours to fi ll up.”
As well as adding extra drainage in the greens, Vince has carried out a lot of drainage work throughout the course. “Since I have been here, we have completely drained the tenth as that had no drainage in it and was absolutely shocking. I started stripping the turf off one morning, and I deliberately stripped off more than I could possibly do to force their hand a bit to get me a mini digger and the right stuff . I dug a circle drain around the green and then linked up every six feet. It’s absolutely transformed it. We have installed drains down the side of the seventh fairway and dug drains in a lot of localised areas.” Whilst on my trip down in Cornwall, a recurring conversation centred around climate change. Vince was no diff erent,
I mow the greens now and look out at the longer grass waving in the wind, and I think that looks really nice
Baal Pit 52 PC October/November 2020
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