Tilly Celebrates Environmental Award for Colmworth

As the Golf Environment Awards head into their 30th year, we celebrate some of the past winners starting with Colmworth, which claimed the UK Environmental Golf Course of the Year in 2024.

“We’re very different,” declared Tilly Vesely when asked to describe Colmworth. The description that followed justified her conviction – you won’t mistake your own golf club for this one. Built in 1991 by Tilly’s grandad, she now runs it with her mum, Julie, and the family duo are ably supported by a small but dedicated staff where women are significantly in the majority.

The Bedfordshire venue enjoys a rural setting that matches its laidback and welcoming vibe, though you would be mistaken to assume its tranquility stems from inactivity; Colmworth is very much alive, woven as it is into the fabric of the countryside and teeming with flora and fauna whose presence is encouraged by the sustainable ethos that underpins everything the club does.

Tilly and her team are passionate about protecting the planet, and that starts by looking after the small patch of it over which they have agency, from utilising renewable energy solutions to a clubhouse built from reclaimed materials. The ultimate aim is for Colmworth to be entirely off the grid.

“Every decision we make comes down to this: are we fighting nature, or are we working with it? We want to work with what the land gives us,” Tilly explained. “For example, when it comes to conserving water, we have a lake which we use for our irrigation. To us that seems like common sense because it’s how we’ve always done it; we had that foundation in place from the start and it’s enabled us to be more efficient with our water usage, and it’s also more financially sustainable. We’ve got a lot of solar, we’ve got biomass boilers, our heating for the whole complex is fuelled by recycled pallet wood – all these things just make sense to us.”

The four-strong greenkeeping team, with Head Greenkeeper Brad Jones at the helm, produce a course that is both a delight to look at and a pleasure to play, not to mention the fact its excellent drainage means Colmworth can cope with the worst excesses of the British weather and remain open year-round. The team are standard-bearers for sustainability and show how golf clubs can act as stewards for the environment, not just existing within a natural setting but actively helping it to thrive, all the while still maintaining a course to a high standard.

“We employ organic turfcare and we’re really minimal input, we don’t use pesticides,” said Tilly, who explained the maintenance programme was first tested on Colmworth’s par-3 course with promising results. “That doesn’t mean we don’t work on our surfaces because we do, and actually we were told recently our greens are among the best in Bedfordshire by people who were rating the top 10 courses in the area.

“That’s really nice to hear because we’ve achieved that without all the extras like constantly topdressing and hauling in sand. I can’t praise the greenkeeping team enough. It’s such a small team but the work they do – along with everyone else at the club – is just amazing.”

The site is blessed with an abundance of wild zones, creating corridors for wildlife to flourish and enhancing the area’s biodiversity – another example of working with nature rather than against it.

Tilly hopes the example set by Colmworth will encourage others to follow suit, though she understands each facility is working within the limitations of its own resources, whether that be finances, manpower, machinery, or the hand that nature has dealt. However, she is confident that a sustainable approach to both course maintenance and club management can yield results across the board.

“I know we’re all given different soil conditions and our own problems to manage,” she said. “But this sustainable approach is doable – you just have to be willing to take that leap of faith and you’ll find that looking after the soil looks after you.” GI

Tilly on the impact of winning

“The awards have certainly helped to establish us and make people appreciate that we do know what we’re doing.

We’ve always done things differently, we’re a family-run, super-friendly club and I think some people might have dismissed us a bit in terms of being a serious example of how to do things. Now I think people are looking at what we’re doing and paying a bit more attention.

We’d love to spread the message for sustainability and show others there’s a different way of doing things that can be of benefit to their club and to the environment.”