Environmental Golf Course of the Year at the prestigious national Golf Environment Awards ceremonial dinner in Harrogate last week, hosted by the Sports Turf Research Institute.
To be considered for the finals, Golf Clubs are shortlisted for a site visit, with four nominees from each category selected to attend the awards dinner. The categories are: Environmental Golf Course of the Year, Conservation Greenkeeper of the Year and Outstanding Environmental Project of the Year. Long term sponsors of the awards include Farmura Environmental, Ransomes Jacobsen, Syngenta, Tillers Turf, Wiedenmann and BIGGA.

Greetham Valley was awed to be a joint finalist in their category with none other than Carnoustie Golf Links, The Carrick on Loch Lomond and Whitley Bay Golf Club. The Environmental Golf Course of the Year award recognises venues which demonstrate environmental best practice, enhancing their own local ecology and improving habitats whilst maintaining the very best in playing surfaces. All the finalist venues were showcased on the evening and the outstanding efforts all had made were clear.

Adi Porter, Greetham Valley’s Course Manager, said “We knew we had done very well to be in the final but really thought we didn’t stand a chance, with such prestigious golf courses, known for their excellent ecological projects, being strong contenders. The owners, Robert and Dee Hinch and I were just thoroughly enjoying the atmosphere of the ceremonial awards dinner in exalted company – when we were announced as the winners of the main award of the evening, we were totally shocked and overwhelmed! And what we greatly appreciated were the genuine congratulations from everyone at the ceremony, many of whom seemed as delighted for our outstanding achievement as we were!” Robert and Dee were keen to pay tribute to the whole team at Greetham Valley, saying “We all work together to tackle and achieve environmental best practice and we are absolutely delighted to have this recognised at such a prestigious awards ceremony.”

STRI ecology consultant, Sophie Vukelic, said: “For 22 years the Golf Environment Awards has highlighted the biodiversity value of golf courses around the UK, rewarding the people who manage the land as sustainably as possible, for both golf and wildlife. Greetham Valley greatly impressed the judges with their whole team’s initiatives in creating an environmentally sound, sustainable golf resort, implementing innovative techniques in their determination to promote ecological best practice throughout the venue. Huge congratulations to the winners and finalists of this year’s awards, you truly are the future of golf course management.”

Aiming to reduce the carbon footprint and increase biodiversity across Greetham Valley, staff in all departments – greenkeeping, kitchen, housekeeping, administration, F&B, maintenance – all play their part in numerous ‘eco-projects’ as does the long term sustainability investment by the Hinch family.

Over the years, Course Manager Adi Porter has implemented many of the ecological initiatives which helped win the award, including: greatly reducing chemical usage by introducing an integrated management programme for the control of pests, disease and weeds using holistic techniques, creating an improved habitat for wildlife; becoming part of Operation Pollinator – “the golf industry’s chance to save UK bees” – creating wildflower meadows and a solitary bee tower; erecting a series of nesting boxes for birds and bats; constructing a reed bed and 17 new ponds, populated with fish, which have attracted a diversity of flora and fauna; building wildlife-friendly drystone and log walls and a bug hotel for hibernation and shelter; erecting birdfeeders, feeding towers and bird hides, creating a floating bird island.

Adi adds “One of the most dramatic chemical usage decrease has been that of nitrogen – quantities from tee to green have more than halved. On the greens we were using 250kg per hectare/per year and over the past 8-10 years this has been just 100 kg hectare/year. On the fairways, a granular nitrogen feed treating 30 hectares at a cost of £12k per annum was the norm, now a liquid feed is applied more accurately to only 18 hectares – with reduced nitrogen inputs the cost is now £6k per year. The result is virtually zero nitrogen leaching through the soil profile and into the water courses, without compromising on course presentation quality.

Moisture levels in the greens are carefully and accurately monitored and irrigation applied in just sufficient quantities to keep the greens alive. This has reduced not only water usage but also the amount of electricity used to drive the irrigation pumps – and much of the irrigation water comes from grey water – rain run-off from our buildings.

We have created more areas of natural grassland (now approximately 20 hectares) for wildlife to thrive. This has also saved us one day per week of cutting rough = 40 litres of fuel per week saving, for approx. 24 weeks, total 192 man hours + 1120 litres of fuel. In addition, we used to mow both sides of the stream banks, all the way along its length. We now leave many areas long and cut just once annually, this has helped increase our water vole population.”

Some of the Hinch family’s long term environmental investments include the installation of two huge biomass boilers, powered by woodchip, which provide heat and hot water for most of the complex. Since 1990 over 26,000 trees have been planted across the estate; all felled trees are re-used, by chipping the brash for pathways, splitting logs for the woodburners in the Clubhouse and the holiday cottage; some chippings feed the biomass boilers. In addition, a 40kwh solar panel power system has been installed and LED lighting is fitted throughout the complex. Rainwater is recycled into the irrigation system, more sustainable and efficient sanitary equipment has been installed in public areas, whilst the machinery wash-down system is an environmentally sealed recycling loop. The resort’s holiday Lodges were purchased from a company which sources the timber from sustainable Norwegian forests.

Across the complex, cleaning and housekeeping supplies are eco-friendly; vegetable food waste from the kitchen is composted along with grass cuttings and leaves from the golf courses and grounds and the wood chip ash from the boilers – this rich crumbly compost is then used by the greenkeepers across the estate; two thirds of rubbish produced is recycled including glass, plastic and paper, as is engine oil from the workshop, fryer oil from the kitchen and ink cartridges and paper from the offices. Truly a team effort in sustainability and the Environmental Golf Course of the Year award is very well deserved!

Bailoy has been working with Fulwell Golf Club in Twickenham, helping them to achieve better performance from their GTI PC irrigation system installed in 2008. Updating the Bailoy software at the club has seen the irrigation run time more than halved.

Greg Evans, head of golf course development for Fulwell GC, says: “When I got involved with Fulwell I looked at the greens set up and was worried about the full circle arcs,” he says. “Due to the club wanting to water the surrounds, the greens sprinklers were switched from part-circle to full-circle a few years ago and with permission from the management board, irrigation specialist Lakes and Greens was commissioned to upgrade the greens system installing back-to-back greens and surrounds sprinklers.”

Before work commenced, Bailoy was asked to make an appraisal of the course cable and the GTI PC system to confirm that an update would achieve the club’s immediate aims. The club also wanted to be sure that it was investing in a system that could manage future upgrades.

The site cable was good quality, but because new stations and sprinklers had been added, moved and replaced since the system’s installation without the GTI database software being updated, the system was not performing to the best of its ability. Bailoy advised on the importance of having the data in the GTI software accurately reflecting the hardware installed on-site and the performance and time saving benefits it would bring.

The irrigation team then collected site data to input into the GTI software, concentrating first on the greens and surrounds, entering data from the new back-to-back sprinklers installed by Lakes and Greens. This immediately made a significant difference to the operation of the system, especially the run times. Greg confirms this by saying: “A typical 2mm programme took four hours to complete pre-update, but the changes to the database means this has reduced to 1.5 hours.”

Since starting the process, Fulwell has continued auditing the whole system. Sean Eckett the club’s irrigation technician has been checking sprinklers are in the right formation and data in the GTI software matches. He found there was a huge discrepancy between what was out in the field and what’s recorded in the database. “It is very rewarding to look at where the irrigation system is now compared to where it was,” he says. “On certain areas of the golf course the database was extremely out of sync with what it was in the field, which would have massively affected run times and efficiency.”

Based on the success of the work and audit, Greg, Sean and head greenkeeper Sam Evans have been happy with the performance of the system in 2016. Sam says: “To have a reliable system both on the computer and out in the field means we can be much more critical and accurate with how we irrigate the golf course. It is a time-consuming process and at times difficult, but with Sean’s hard work and Bailoy’s input we now have an accurate representation and we are working towards knowing every detail out on the golf course, making the management and maintenance far easier and resulting in big time savings.”

Greg, who consults for golf clubs across UK and Ireland, concludes by saying: “I work as an independent consultant and this is the first time I’ve worked closely with the Bailoy system. I like it, the system is easy to use and very effective. They are particularly good for those clubs opting for a retro fit installation, utilising the existing control cabling, decoders, solenoids and sprinklers as they do. Plus the backup support is fantastic.”