Bearwood Lakes Golf Club

Bearwood Lakes Golf Club
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Friday 21 September 2012

Cutting the rough

Most of the members at the golf club will be delighted to discover that we are cutting the long rough down next week. Our owner Gary Holloway asked me this week why we do it and why other club have different strategies. I composed a reply and thought that id put it on here to share with you just in case your were not sure either.


Dear Gary 

All sites are quite different and will be managed differently based on the soil type, budgets and staff etc. The reason for us cutting and collecting the grass is due to several reasons. The long rough is really important here and it is important to try to create a thin, wispy rough which looks great but will only penalise the golfer half a shot. When I began here the rough was terrible and the golfer was unfairly penalised. We need to try and create a sward which is dominated but a fine fescue grass and bents and not by coarse rye and Yorkshire fog.

Unfortunately fine fescue grows naturally in sandy free draining soil, infertile soil.  At Bearwood unfortunately we have a predominantly heavy clay subsoil soil which fescues do not enjoy due to the wet, fertile nature. These soils encourage rye and yorkshire fog and if left unmanaged dominate and create the rough we used to have which is overly penal and ugly.  

We have set up an integrated approach to managing our rough to make it as good as possible. If mother nature decide to have the wettest summer in years that will have an effect, but it would have been much worse had we not kept up our management technique and will be much better in dry years. Other courses I have played this year has rough much worse than ours.

1.       Most importantly we cut and collect the rough. This over time reduces the fertility of the soil (as we are taking away the nutrition and not putting any back in the form of fertiliser). This then helps to create an environment more suited to fescue growth and less to rye growth over time. If we are able to then scarify or spring tine it as well to get even more grass out then this would also be helpful. We can do this with the profihopper or  blue box. Purchasing a spring tine rake  is something we should look at a later date.

2.      We do not water or feed the rough to help reduce fertility
3.      
Once the grass is starting to settle down we will then  spray it with Rescue. This will take out more rye grass and Yorkshire fog to accelerate the species transition. This will be sped up further by regular overseeding if possible.


I have also pasted a link should you want any more info and to look at what others do but again it is on another type of golf course


Kind regards  - any other questions please do not hesitate to ask

Daniel 
Its not always people digging up the greens. Motion sensor cameras on 15  picked up these two wandering past!


Monday 10 September 2012

Recycling

All the old cores,  mixed with seed and fertiliser and dressed out on the back of the new range


New sweep and fill machine on demo. A great bit of kit which would make a huge difference.

Dan

Sunday 2 September 2012

Spot the difference!!

Can you spot the difference between the two shots. Easy really! We have removed the gorse on the right of the 1st to reinstate the original clean lines of the hole and to encourage better shotmaking and not being overly penal  if your ball goes in the gorse.

The punishment is that you have to play over a deep bunker, from the rough with little landing area. If you do a good job of this then you should be rewarded!