these Open Championship Clubs choose to relief grind - Pitchcare

Golf
In his lighter, tongue-in-cheek
moments, Jim Arthur used to say
that keeping a golf course in good
condition would be a piece of cake if
it weren’t for the ruddy golfers. He
might have said the equivalent when
looking at the Centre Court at the end of
Wimbledon fortnight, or a cricket square
on the fifth day of a Test Match. Battle
scars are a problem in most sports.
It was nothing, years ago, for football
pitches in mid-season to be all earth and
no grass. Goalkeepers invariably stood
on mud from October to April, with a
fair sprinkling of standing water on the
rest of the pitch thrown in. Hockey’s
answer was a conversion to artificial
surfaces, speeding up the tempo of the
game in the process, although a game,
played all along the ground, forbidding
the raising of sticks above the shoulder,
now seems to allow more freedom.
Tennis’s decision to follow suit was also
an attempt to standardise playing
conditions, as well as a consistent method
of snuffing out the weather that could be
so disruptive to tournament schedules.
Only a few British tennis tournaments
remain loyal to grass.
If golf could be played indoors, which
heaven forbid, it too could take place at
all hours of the night and day but, whilst
suspensions to play are made when it
rains and blows too hard, there is no
doubt that golfers’ expectations are more
demanding than fifty years ago, largely a
response to the rising skills of
greenkeepers and their methods.
Increasingly, they have made the
impossible possible.
This expectation among golfers is as
true of clubs’ catering solely for its
members, as it is of the professionals
The Greenkeepers Training
Committee Chairman, Donald
Steel, reflects on the ‘good old
days’ and how modern
machinery, training and
communication have improved
the greenkeeper’s working
environment, even if the
techniques remain somewhat
similar at times
THOSE were
the DAYS?
42 PC FEBRUARY/MARCH 2012
competing for indecently large prize
money. Whereas, years ago, members
would put their clubs away when the
clocks went back in the autumn, and
leave them there until they went forward
again in the spring, a high proportion
want to play all the year round. The
season is never ending.
In order for this to happen, a greater
awareness of the need for good drainage
has become ingrained. The example of
new courses building greens designed for
this very purpose has led to something of
a fashion of fairly widespread remedial
work to those built in far off days, but it
has been the arrival of sophisticated and
versatile machinery that has, more than
anything, helped to achieve miracles.
Wear and tear is still a factor but it is
disguised far more skilfully.
Turning the clock back is a wonderful
way of showing your age but, if there is
one benefit in growing old, it is in
enabling you to make comparisons -
comparisons that younger generations
may find hard to believe. It is the same
with today’s young players who think
everybody has always hit drives 350 yards
with club heads as big as melons.
Back in the 1950s, a small part of my
long summer holiday was spent helping
the Head Greenkeeper at Denham with
the annual task of treating the greens. It
took the form of an army of helpers
scarifying the putting surface by hand
with springbok rakes and cutting the
grass raised above ground level. There
then followed the process of hand hollow
tining and an application of sand or
soot to fill the holes before, finally, a
wash-in with sprinklers that were neither
creeping nor automatic. Because of the
laborious nature of the work, it was only
Wilmslow Golf Course in stunning condition
possible to programme five or six greens
a year.
Nowadays, eighteen greens can be
completed in perhaps two or three days
with a wide range of choice surrounding
the type, depth and severity of aeration.
What is more, some sort of aeration can
be attempted several times a summer. All
this came back to me during a series of
workshops given during last year by
Laurence Pithie, Master Greenkeeper, a
helpful series of gatherings to be
repeated throughout 2012.
They were organised by The
Greenkeepers Training Committee to
promote better knowledge and
understanding among Secretaries of
Clubs, Chairmen of Green Committees
and the greenkeeping staff. The clear
message was that, whilst principles
haven’t changed, implementation has
been transformed. Illustrations of a
battery of modern machines that
synchronise the whole exercise were an
absolute eye-opener, although an even
bigger eye opener was putting a figure
on the cost of equipping an average
greenkeeping complex.
There is no hint of criticism at the
methods of yesteryear because everybody