Temporary greens, right of way, rough length
It’s your chance to ask the experts to get the greenkeeping information that you really want. We asked Scott Reeves, veteran course manager and BIGGA head of membership, why greenkeepers should have right of way, why the rough is so long – and much, much more.
Why can’t our temporary greens be relatively flat and even?
There is a clue in the name – in that they’re temporary. They aren’t maintained all year round. Most modern golf greens, if you were to construct one, will cost north of £30,000, and you need extremely expensive materials.
Most temporary greens are cut out on a piece of fairway, or an approach somewhere, and are just not maintained to that standard.
We’re using them as a stop gap. The question talks about ‘relatively flat’. That’s a matter of budgets and resources. If you want better temporary greens you have to invest in your infrastructure, your staff and in your inventory.
Why should greenkeepers have right of way on the course?
The obvious answer is they are there to provide that golf course for you. If they don’t have right of way it takes way longer to get anything done.
Some studies show when golfers are on the course something like cutting a fairway can take up to 80 per cent longer. It’s a matter of efficiency.
Why can’t the rough be a more manageable length?
Is there a course policy document at your club? What’s been agreed? What is manageable? Grass grows really fast. At most clubs there are only four or five greenkeepers and the opportunity to get out and cut that rough might be once a week.
You can almost see it growing behind you and by the time you get to the finish, with all the rough you need to cut, you need to pretty much start again.
It’s relative to different courses and I think most greenkeepers are open to the conversation and can probably justify why they use the heights of cut they do.
But it often comes down to resource and where you place your priorities.
Why can’t our greens be quick all summer, if they can be that fast for captain’s day?
There are two key answers to this one. The first, again, is resource. You need the people, the machinery and the time to get greens up to that standard.
The second is it can be extremely stressful to the grass to maintain them at that pace. Even the greatest golf courses in the world very rarely have their greens running at lightning pace day in and day out because of the stress it places on the sward.
It damages it. It leaves turf much more susceptible to disease. It won’t be able to withstand issues or changes in temperature.
There are also many factors that determine the pace of greens, and height of cut would be the last thing. The first thing I would always do was make sure the mower was properly set up.
If it’s sharp, it can dramatically increase the pace of a golf green without sacrificing turf quality.
Why is our course always so soggy?
If you’re a member of such a course, you need to ask yourself, ‘have you been investing?’ Has there been investment in capital infrastructure such as drainage, or the machinery you need to carry out aeration?
Climate change has made a big difference in the last few years. Last year, summer basically ended in July. It started raining and raining and we had one of the wettest years I can remember.
But to say the course is always soggy, that’s probably an exaggeration. It’s an emotive statement and probably not actually accurate.
Most courses aren’t free draining links or heathlands. They are built on land that wasn’t much good for anything else. Farmland was there to grow a crop, you wanted to retain moisture and nutrients.
But these are the kinds of sites where lots of courses are built. Then there are lots of trees. People like those, but those sites tend to be wetter.
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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