What does a links greenkeeper do in summer?
This article was featured in the Spring 2019 edition of Your Course magazine
Managing a links course in summer often means treading a fine line. Yes, the sort of grasses that thrive on the coast tend to be hardier than most. But then they need to be, because the elements that test them mean a layout can require careful management.
That’s certainly the case at Formby Ladies, the quirky, classic links that sits in the centre of its championship sibling Formby on the Lancashire coast.
“Summer on the links is generally about balancing moisture inputs and irrigation,” said Course Manager Rob Sandilands. “We’re pretty dry, so you’ve got to try early on in the spring to start your wetting agent programme to lock a reasonable amount of moisture into the soil and get the numbers in your favour.
“We have a programme of wetting agents on fairways, greens and all those sort of areas. You are using management tools, like moisture meters, to keep those things within the parameters that you know are what keeps your site in the best condition.”
What’s a wetting agent? You probably know that water has two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule (H2O). That gives water a strong surface tension, which is why water will bend slightly over the edge of a cup before it spills over. So to get those molecules to cling onto soil particles and spread out in the soil, you need to break the surface tension of the water. Wetting agents help greenkeepers make the most of the water that is applied to a surface.
Most of the time, that liquid will be rain, whereas irrigation is a very different beast on a links course compared to others.
Rob explained: “It is just a fall back or an insurance policy in a lot of cases. You are just maintaining enough moisture to keep fine grasses happy.
“You are not especially concerned over firmness – the firmer the better for a site like ours in summer.
“But without irrigation on fairways you are at the mercy of the elements. You’ve got to try and do what you can to retain a certain amount of moisture. By and large, a links site like ours will do OK on a limited amount of moisture. The plants that are there want to be there and have grown to be there over hundreds of years so you are just doing what favours those plants naturally.
“Finer grasses and those slightly acidic grasslands are drought tolerant and have deep rooting. There’s a lot of aeration and overseeding of finer species to try and supplement that.”
How does a drought change things?
“It was brown for a while and it then became white,” Rob said, remembering the drought of summer 2018. It was the heat that really did it. A lot of species that we thought would be very drought tolerant just met their limit and all of a sudden we were losing coverage on fairways. We’ve got a bit of work to do to catch things up.
“The point of dormancy was what we could have kept on our side if we had some fairway irrigation. We didn’t and despite doing everything in our power, dormancy did move on to death in quite a few areas – which we have had to reseed in the autumn and will do again in spring.”
But the drought may, in the future, prove to bring some infrastructure benefits at Formby Ladies. A new irrigation sub committee was formed, the weaknesses in the current system identified and a long-term plan was drawn up.
Formby Ladies
This links course may be found right in the centre of its more prestigious big brother, Formby, but underestimate it at your peril. Placed amid the pine trees and sand dunes of the Lancashire coast, it measures just 5,374 yards. But with its tight fairways and small, well-guarded greens, it demands a great deal of thought and a precise iron game. With heather lying just off the fairways and the rough a stiff challenge, elevated tees show off much of the course and the Irish Sea.
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