TENNIS
Centre Court sward after scarifi cation, prior to Attraxor application, seeding and topdressing
This change in our calendar necessitated a change in focus on our part, and as facilities were allowed to re-open post lockdown, it became evident that we would need to extend our member grass court season in order to increase the number of courts available for use. Firstly, because indoor facilities (which make up a quarter of our available courts) would be off limits, and secondly, because for large parts of the year doubles was not permissible, meaning that court capacity eff ectively dropped during these periods by 50%, as only singles tennis could be played.
Post renovation Poa
This need to create additional capacity meant that we needed to extend our playing season, fi rstly at the start of our season. We worked hard to ensure that as soon as restrictions facilitated a re-opening of tennis we would have grass courts ready, and this is indeed something we accomplished. It also meant stretching out the back end of our season, in turn pushing back our end of season renovations, thus reducing our window to complete works on the courts to ensure their readiness for the 2021 season. Whilst this was a trade-off
that had to be made, it created areas where compromises needed to be made. For one, could we risk heavy, invasive works if the courts would not then have time to recover prior to the winter?
For example, in a normal year, we would start renovating our centre court in early August, our three practice courts in mid to late-August, and then our four match courts sequentially through September, with the last two generally coming out of use in the last week of the month. With 2020 not being a ‘normal’ year, and capacity pressures mandating a longer grass court season, we put ourselves in a position whereby we would keep all eight courts open, including Centre Court, until the 1st of September, at which point we would start dropping courts out sequentially, but still leaving some in play until later in the month. That decision, whilst in the best interests of our members and therefore the club, did create some challenges. Most obviously that we would be condensing down works that we would normally spread over eight weeks into just four! This put pressure on manpower, especially as we were
One of my favourite pieces of advice to give to a
groundsman is to stop and think about why you are doing something; if you can’t explain why you are doing it, you almost certainly shouldn’t do it
88 PC February/March 2021
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