Preparing for winter at a regular parkland course
Read on to discover how greenkeepers at a clay-based parkland in the Midlands prepare for the difficult winter season.
Dave Stewart is course manager at Great Barr Golf Club just outside Birmingham. Though he loves winter, the challenges it brings are becoming more unpredictable each year.
What are the biggest challenges you face in winter?
We're a parkland, clay-based course and I'd say our biggest challenge is access for us to get around the course when the bad weather comes. It's also managing the impact of wear around the course from golfers and we have to manage people's expectations of what a winter course should be.
Where did you focus your efforts in your first winter at Great Barr?
When I started three-and-a-half-years ago, I inherited poorly drained greens. We only had two or three greens that drained well, so in winter you would end up with a lot of temporary greens in use.
In my first winter I set out to improve the temporary greens. You don't want to spend too long working on temporary greens, but we decided to move them to the approaches, instead of having them on the fairways. Those areas are better maintained, they're potentially cut a bit more frequently through winter, they're flatter and smoother and you're not reducing the distance as much.
Have you sought ways to reduce the need for winter greens?
We put in place a programme of improving our greens drainage.
We identified the worst ones and started with those, and it has effectively reduced the number of winter greens we use by three each winter. In the most recent winter, we had only two or three that came into play.
This is good news for the club and members as it means having more chance of holding qualifying competitions through the winter.
That's one of the ways we've improved the playability of the course through the winter months, as well as introducing a lot more pathways, fairway drainage and we do have a couple of winter mats, but only on a couple of par 3s that are too small to accept the wear.
How are you able to mitigate wear and tear on the tees?
A big issue that greenkeepers are facing is that, since the changes to the World Handicap System, you're only allowed to realistically have the temporary tee markers within 10 yards of the permanent ones and most courses haven't got the ability to do that year-round.
What we've started doing with some of our worst-affected tees is making them wider instead of longer. If I've got a yellow tee that's 20 yards long and the disc is towards the back of that, I've effectively got eight to 10 yards of unused tee ground because of the new rules.
The way we've approached it means we can have a qualifying course that is playable through the winter.
How do you deal with managing traffic around potential problem areas?
I try to purchase rope and stakes throughout the summer when I can afford to so that we have more each winter to guide golfers around the course and spread the wear out. This is something we then keep an eye on each day and adjust it as necessary.
By being able to spread the wear on carries and high-traffic areas around greens, we're able to keep the course open longer throughout winter.
Do you have any contingency plans, short of course closure, when the conditions are bad?
One thing we implemented last winter was a seven-hole playing loop. When the course is at its wettest and could be closed, we instead keep open our driest seven. These are accessible even to single-seater buggy users, so we’re giving the golfers the option to get out and play even when the weather may not be great.
What we looked to do this summer is try to push it to a nine-hole loop and we’ll keep improving other areas to enable us to extend this to more and more holes.
Our ultimate aim is to have an 18-hole golf course that is playable throughout the winter, with fewer restrictions.
What happens to your height of cut as winter approaches?
Throughout the main four months of our playing season, when most of our big events are held, we cut as low as 3mm. We’ve got relatively flat greens so we can’t rely on undulations. If we’re chasing more speed, perhaps around the club championship, we may drop to 2.8mm, but that’s very rare.
We have a greens renovation in August and then as soon as we come out of that, we tend to stick at 4mm through to November because we find that when the growth starts to settle down, the speed stays.
Between December and February it’s about maintaining sward density. We’re trying to get the best coverage we can because the turf will come out of winter a little thinner than when we went into it.
The weather will dictate how we proceed, but will slowly increase the height of cut up to around 5mm through the depths of winter. We will only cut greens two or three times a month during this period.
When do preferred lies come into effect?
We don't set a date on it; we go off ground conditions. From my time here, we tend to usually bring them in around mid-to-late October. We still had them up until around May this year because of the spring we had.
At times we could potentially have a great autumn going into winter and we might not need preferred lies until the start of November. Then there are other times, like last year, where we got to October and it didn't stop raining.
The club are quite flexible in leaving it down to my experience and understanding of the golf course.
What are the key factors when it comes to deciding on course closures?
I've experienced it all with different course managers at different clubs, some who are more lenient towards the golfers and others who are more on the side of protecting the course. I've come to the opinion that you want to have the course open as often as possible.
This is why we've looked to introducing shorter courses that can be kept open, as long as it doesn't have a detrimental impact on the surfaces.
Sometimes pressure can come from the fact that other local golf courses might have a policy of staying open no matter what.
I think one of the most frustrating things as a greenkeeper is when people do go out and play 18 holes and they come back in and say, 'That shouldn't have been open today'. We'd hope that players would realise after a couple of holes that it's too wet and come back in and say that, rather than play a full 18 and then complain about it.
A big factor is health and safety, so you have to make sure it's safe for people to get around the course without slipping, tripping or falling. If we can do that, we will definitely lean towards keeping the course open.
Why Dave actually welcomes winter
“Winter is arguably my favourite time of year. I feel like the summer can get a little bit more stressful, whereas things slow down a bit in winter and it gives me a chance to assess what’s gone before and make plans for what’s ahead.
“I enjoy the winter and build-up to it because you’ve played your main competitions, you’re maintaining the course to a high standard, but it’s not taking as much time or as much effort to keep it at that level because the growth is starting to slow down.
“That means you have a little bit more time to get ahead with a winter project, whether it’s building pathways or looking at fairway drainage.
“You have to capitalise and get stuff done when the ground conditions allow and you do need to make sure you’re not making a mess of things, but if you get that right then winter can actually be a really enjoyable and quite productive time.”
How Dave contributed to a change in the rules of golf
The enterprising greenkeeper took up the cause for plastic hole stabilising rings that add stability when hole surrounds are wet
Placed above the top of the liner, plastic hole stabilising rings normally cover the top inch of soil and aim to protect the integrity of the hole in inclement conditions.
In the Rules of Golf, the definition of hole says if a lining is used it "must be sunk at least 1 inch (25.4mm) below the putting green surface, unless the nature of the soil requires that it be closer to the surface".
While you may have taken 'nature of the soil' to include the types of conditions that can arise in the UK, previous rules appeared not to cater for that – referring instead to dry, crumbly, soils that might be found in desert environments.
Dave took up the case, enlisting the help of BIGGA CEO Jim Croxton, and forced a rethink, with the rings now approved for use in abnormal conditions.
"We pushed hard on the hole stabilising rings after the ruling that any scores submitted while they were in place weren't deemed acceptable for handicap purposes.
"We had a massive challenge throughout the winter as we've obviously been on push-up greens and it's difficult to keep the holes stabilised when the conditions aren't great, so that was a big thing for us.
"We only change holes probably twice a week in the winter, but the stabiliser rings allow the holes to stay fresher for longer and allow the greens to recover for longer before we have to move them again."
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.
Author
