'Greenkeeping is a science and an art - a bit like playing'
Not many people know that the former Ryder Cup player, commentator and author Ken Brown was once a greenkeeper in his home county of Hertfordshire. BIGGA’s Karl Hansell found out the whole story.
For decades now, one television personality has got closer to the turf than any other.
Ken Brown has made a name for himself as ‘Ken on the Course’, providing viewers with a closer look at interesting course features during championship events.
But before he became a five-time Ryder Cup player, Ken spent time mowing the fairways at Harpenden Common in Hertfordshire.
We caught up with him at the course he designed across town at Aldwickbury Park to hear his thoughts on the changing game and the relationship between greenkeepers and golfers at the highest levels.
What are your memories of your time as a greenkeeper?
I was in the lower sixth at school and one day I said ‘that’s it, I’m not going to school any more’. I told my mum and dad, who said ‘well you’re not going to sit and do nothing are you?’ I said ‘I’m going to play golf’. My dad said ‘no, you’re not going to do that either, you need to get a job’.
So, for about six months, I went to Harpenden Common and did greenkeeping in the morning and played golf in the afternoon. Our head greenkeeper was Mr Vawkings - I never knew what his first name was. In those days all you did was cut the fairways and the greens, there was nothing much inbetween.
Twice a year you’d do your hollowtining. It was all gang mowed and then you’d hand cut the greens.
That’s all they did and it was good enough for the golfers because Option B didn’t exist.
I used to go around on a motorbike and rake the bunkers. There are only 30 bunkers at Harpenden Common anyway, but I’d come back in about two hours and they’d say ‘that used to take us a day and a half to do the bunkers!’
There were some really interesting jobs. I remember doing the hollowtining and it was quite hard work sweeping it all up. If we had worms they used to put coconut in the water and spray it on the tees. All these worms would come up and we’d sweep them off and shove them somewhere else.
I used to set the holes up for medals where I knew people couldn’t get to them, so I’d have an advantage. It was just a great time.
The greens weren’t greens at all – they were just fairways that had been cut shorter. It was like a different world and eight on the Stimp meter would have been a quick green. All the greens were slow and, compared to now, not very true. Things gradually change and if a member comes up and says ‘it’s always been like that’, well, I’m telling you now it wasn’t.
Tree planting comes up time and time again. It happened around the late 1960s and 70s, when things were tight and greenkeepers didn’t want to build bunkers because they didn’t have enough people to maintain them. So to make courses harder they just thought ‘let’s plant a load of trees’. But you go to some places now and they’re just an eyesore.
What’s the journey that takes you from greenkeeping to being a Ryder Cup player?
After Harpenden, I joined Verulam as an assistant pro. There was a putting green just outside the club shop, so I could putt and if anyone went through the door, I could see them. At the end of 1975 I won the Herts Pros, the Herts Assistants and the Southern Assistants.
Alex Hay, the commentator from Woburn, said to me ‘do you fancy playing on tour?’
He went to see [former executive director] Ken Schofield, who was just starting at the European Tour, and said to him ‘we’ve got a young lad, is there any chance he can play?’
At the end of ’75 they let me play in half a dozen events and if I did OK, they were going to let me pre-qualify. The next year I got into the top 60 and then the year after I was in the Ryder Cup.
It was very quick, a miracle really, because I only played at a local level as an amateur so I didn’t know how good I was. I didn’t think I was very good, but I had never really tested myself.
When your career took you to America, was there a difference in standard of the course and did you understand why that was?
They were certainly more consistent. We played a bigger variety of courses back then. Some of the greens, if you went to Texas or Florida, they were still playing on common Bermuda and that’s a scruffy grass, so there was a much bigger cross-section of courses.
Modern playing equipment is to blame because the courses have slowly evolved to test that equipment out. Nothing goes along the ground any more. As equipment has evolved, players have evolved with it. If I gave Tiger Woods my old 3-wood or driver that I used in ’77, he wouldn’t hit the planet and he’d probably also smash it to pieces.
It’s a different game, but I’m sure that from when Tom Morris played at St Andrews the game has slowly evolved and the exam paper has got easier and easier to know what the answers are.
There’s less strategy and the game has slowly evolved into execution, rather than ‘where can I play this ball and what are the consequences of doing that?’ I don’t think that crosses their minds any more, so when they get a Carnoustie like it was at The Open in 2018, where the ball is running 80 yards and it’s bouncing everywhere, that was probably the most entertaining day they’ve had playing golf.
It’s just a different game, although what wouldn’t change is if Seve, Faldo or Langer stood on the 1st tee with these guys, they’d still beat them because they were winners. They’d have found a way.
Did the elite golfers of yesteryear have an awareness of course preparation?
It’s absolutely critical to understand the conditioning of the course, no matter where you play.
You want to know the trajectory of the ball when you chip and the angle it’s going to run out at or how the turf affects the shot.
I think back then there was a slightly closer relationship between everybody in the game because it was more of a family affair. But the greenkeeper was always at the front end of any griping. Everyone was expecting it to be just right, so if it wasn’t the greenkeepers always got it.
You’re famous for getting closer to the course than anyone else. What ticks the boxes for you when it comes to course preparation?
It’s the set up of the course that’s most important. Everyone likes a nice, smooth green, but it’s how you set it up. The narrower it is, the less interesting it is, because then you’ve just got to hit it down the middle. It’s about options and bringing things into play because if you can get someone to consider whether to take a risk and go close to a hazard or play safe, that’s where golf becomes interesting.
When you go to a tournament, do you speak to the greenkeepers?
Nearly every week. Most of the time I’m shooting around looking at pin positions, but normally the greenkeeper is with someone who’s setting up the course and pin positions and suchlike.
I ask them whether there are any changes to the course because these days, condition-wise, they’re always perfect. Some of the courses we play in the Middle East are breathtaking, you couldn’t get them any better if you tried. I may ask them what the speed of the greens is, but I’d be more interested if they double cut them or rolled them.
In your experience, does the everyday golfer have the same respect for greenkeepers?
The pro who is playing on the circuit understands that this is not something that just happens. I don’t think anyone thinks greenkeepers just mow grass any more. That’s gone. I’ve got a lawn at home and my goodness it doesn’t look anything like this, so I think that’s passed by.
Every course is unique and they require different treatment. There are so many things that go into running a golf course, such as local knowledge of how your course runs best. It’s a science as well as an art, a bit like playing.
Ken on…
The future of golf course maintenance
The interesting thing for me is where is golf heading? As you know, there’s a cost in all of it. Every year my wife and I go somewhere in Scotland and generally there’s a little golf course where there’s usually one greenkeeper, if there’s even one. You can see where golf has come from and where it’s heading.
We can’t go on with glamorous golf because it’s unaffordable. So, from a design point of view, you have to make a challenge out of a hole without plastering bunkers everywhere.
The powers that be have got to separate championship golf from mainstream golf. It takes a phenomenal amount of manpower and technical skill and it’s not real golf. When I go to Scotland, some of the courses don’t have a greenkeeper and the locals come and cut them or sheep wander round, it’s very basic. To me it’s just as interesting to play, more so in some ways, than to go around a course where it’s all beautiful.
Tour golf has no relevance to club golf because you haven’t got a chance [of reaching those levels] in a million years. Otherwise golf has no future because you need more greenkeepers, more machines and there becomes a point where it’s not sustainable.
I think golfers want everything to be just right, but it doesn’t have to be that way. When Tom Morris was playing around St Andrews, nothing was raked or perfect, but that was the essence of the game. Golfers have got to understand that it doesn’t have to be bright green and stripy. Somewhere down the road they’re going to say ‘you know what, you can’t use water on the golf course because we haven’t got any to waste’. Then the whole thing will go back to where we were at Harpenden Common in 1965, where it’s going to dry out and you’ll have to roll the ball on and there’ll be a funny bounce here and there.
Golf is much more interesting played along the ground than it is up in the air, so maybe it will turn full circle. I’ll cost less, be more interesting to play and courses can be shorter.
This article was first published in Your Course, the twice-yearly publication from the British and International Golf Greenkeepers Association. Your Course invites golfers to gain a deeper appreciation of what preparing and maintaining a golf course really involves. Head to www.bigga.org.uk to find out more.
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