What does a parkland greenkeeper do in summer?
This article was featured in the Spring 2019 edition of Your Course magazine
Parklands are very green, lush and popular with golfers all over the UK. But, in summer, lots of trees can bring lots of problems.
Trees are hardy and their roots can spread out over a wide area. Those roots stretch out under fairways and, even worse, under greens. They suck out the available moisture and can hinder keeping playing surfaces in pristine conditions.
Sitwell Park is a heathland hiding in a parkland’s clothing – that’s how course manager Martin Hayward sees the Rotherham course, designed by the great Dr Alister MacKenzie.
“Sitwell Park was originally more of a heathland course,” said Hayward. “There is a lot of gorse, heather and bracken around the golf course, which are natural to the site but have been overtaken by unwanted species of trees.”
The team spent Martin’s first summer in the job undertaking tasks far removed from the simple regime of cutting. An intensive woodland programme was carried out to open areas of the course.
He added: “Certain greens have started to recover quickly because we have removed big trees around them and you can see where the roots are going under the greens They are taking all the moisture away from the turf, which puts the health of the grass at risk. Once they get too big and dense, they start to damage your surfaces and once they do that you have to start cleaning them out. You must have your playing surfaces right.
That thinning out of copses is being followed by a regeneration of gorse and the reintroduction of grassland areas. When the average member turns up at Sitwell Park, Martin and his team have already been there for hours and the course is prepped and ready to go.
They cut three times a week, which leaves two days clear to carry out everything else – strimming, edging and so on. Martin’s crew rakes bunkers every day and that task probably takes a lot longer to complete than you might imagine.
“There are only five of us so it is quite intense labour for the lads,” he said. “We’ve only got 40 bunkers but we do them by hand so we can feel the depths of the sand levels and make sure we have got enough sand in.
“You prepare the course to look nice through the summer but, ultimately, you are doing your work to prepare it for winter and in the winter for spring and so on.
For Martin, that means a lot of aeration: “I believe in letting the turf breathe. Grass needs air pockets to grow into so we undertake lots of aeration and sanding. We introduced about 160 tonnes across the greens and tees last year and we will hopefully increase that gradually as the budget allows.
Sitwell Park
This Rotherham course is renowned for having one of the most highly respected finishes in the area. The classic MacKenzie greens also set it apart, with their fast and tricky reads, and the course retains much of the original design as the layout slopes around a hillside. But this picturesque parkland has also recently modernised, having gone through a five-year redevelopment programme in time for the club’s centenary back in 2013.
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