Look at me now!

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Look at me now!: Scott MacCallum caught up with Jordan Fairweather and learned just how far greenkeeping has taken him.

Jordan Fairweather had been joined by his parents for a meeting with the school’s careers’ advisor. Always keen to keep busy, he had been splitting his time between two holiday jobs, one at his father’s car dealership and the other divotting fairways at Letham Grange Golf Club, near Arbroath.

Look at me now!

Look at me now!

When it came to the inevitable question of “What do you want to do?”, it was as much a surprise to his mum and dad as it was to the careers’ advisor when he replied, “I’d like to go to Elmwood College and give greenkeeping a go”.

It was perhaps the fact that his parents were so dumbstruck by the answer that it was neither of them who spoke next.

“’That’s an absolutely silly idea. It will never give you a career, never give you enough money and you’ll be spending the rest of your life cutting grass, You should go into the family business’,” was the response from the person whose sole role was advising young people on the path to career fulfilment.

That was back in the mid ‘90s and Jordan was recounting the story from Dubai, where he is in charge of operations at three prestigious golf clubs. He had just spent his weekend with his wife and two young children around the private pool in his housing complex. He has responsibility for around 115 staff and regularly meets with the clubs’ boards and stakeholders to discuss the current performance of the business along with further development opportunities.

Thinking back to that careers’ advisor, there is no feeling of having proved her wrong, just a degree of frustration that an excellent career option could so easily be ridiculed.

“I remember thinking I wonder what she would have said if I’d told her that I wanted to be a Formula One driver or a fighter pilot. She’d probably have said it was a good ambition to have. But what are the chances of making a life at that? Very slim!”

Being brought up on the east coast of Scotland – not far from Carnoustie – Jordan was very much in a golfing/ greenkeeping heartland, particularly with that other huge employer of greenkeepers, St Andrews Links, not too far away either. However, Jordan had a thirst for knowledge and to make the most of his career, and without a genuine affinity for links golf, he felt the urge to move away.

“I could see that I wasn’t going to learn any more where I was and so I took a long shot and gave up my full-time position and took a seasonal job at Loch Lomond Golf Club, working for Ken Siems and David Cole. I stayed there for seven and a half years.”

After just one year Ken, known for his ability to identify talent, was giving Jordan special projects to handle, including installing the SubAir system, one of the first at any UK golf club, irrigation-related projects and installing drainage pumps on what was and is regarded as a particularly wet site.

“What he saw in me? I’ve no idea. You’d have to ask him. Maybe it was a willingness to learn and try anything new. That was what I saw in Ken. He’d take a risk on anything.

The view was if you don’t try you are never going to improve. The funny thing is we still call each other now bouncing ideas of each other.

“Loch Lomond was certainly a stepping stone to learning and creativity, the management team were always trying to see how to take something to the next level.”

Certainly Loch Lomond was a great place to develop and Jordan was there when it was a regular host of the Barclay’s Scottish Open. He also grabbed the opportunity to study at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

“The Scottish Opens were always such a highlight on your calendar, but what really came through to me, at a place like Loch Lomond, was that there was so much more to the industry and so much you can do within the industry whether than be in a specialised area like irrigation or in construction or grow-in.”

When Ken moved on to a build a golf course in Dubai he asked Jordan if he wanted to go with him.

Look at me now!

Look at me now!

“That was in 2008 and to say that I haven’t been home since, would be correct,” said Jordan, who clarified the statement by saying he’d probably been back to see his parents five or six times since, often coinciding with friends’ weddings or BTME at Harrogate.

Jordan was Construction Manager, working under Ken who was Project Manager, on the Golf City project in Dubai, which , ironically given its name, has now been replaced by a housing development. They were also responsible for grassing the racecourse which hosts the world’s richest race along with construction of the world-acclaimed Yas Links.

Dubai was not immune from the world recession in 2010 and construction work on such projects slowed, so Jordan made the decision which was to impact the rest of his life – he took on the task of completing construction and growing-in on a golf course in Bulgaria.

“The job had been advertised through St Andrews company, Braemar Golf, and I went to work there for a Bulgarian owner. It was then that I met my now wife. We were the first two employees of
the company and she was working on the marketing,” said Jordan, for whom the apartment they bought in Sofia, is still, and will always be, regarded as home – no matter where he and the family are living.

That Bulgarian project lasted two and a half years, after which he was off to Bahrain and the Royal Golf Club, where he not only managed the agronomy of the golf course, but also managed a landscaping company along with a golf cart sales and service division.

“The golf club was on an island and there were no local companies to supply fertilisers or flags and pins etc. The club was already the island’s biggest importer of seed and fertiliser and so a lot of the other managers at football pitches and racecourses used to ask us to bring supplies in for them.

“I stayed there for four years and by the time I left the landscaping company, which was run out of the golf maintenance department, was turning over $1 million, more than the F&B banqueting and Fitness departments.”

That was a great lesson for Jordan about the how various departments within a golf club can work towards the overall success of the club.

“Back in Scotland, each department tends to be run very separately – the greenkeeper is the greenkeeper, the steward is the steward and the F&B guy is the F&B guy. Very rarely is there any working together to achieve more for the club. Greenkeeping is usually the biggest cost centre for any golf club so the golf course manager or Superintendent should be in a position to manage more of the business and make the decisions. It was in Bahrain where I started to learn more about the business side of running, not just golf clubs, but businesses.”

Next stop was Malaysia.

“The Royal Golf Club was managed by Troon Golf and I’d been doing well and enjoying the job. Our daughter was born while we were there.

However, Troon asked if I wanted to go to Malaysia because they had a 72 hole Ernie Els design project.

They had already opened 18 holes and there was going to be another 18 holes on one side of a village, close to Singapore in Southern Malaysia, with another three loops of nine next door as well as a nine hole par-3. The first 18 holes was on the Island of Langkawi and required a flight every second Sunday.”

It was a Malaysian Government project aimed at growing tourism in the area and there were also a host to attractions being developed from water parks to Hard Rock Cafes and resort hotels.

“We were a 20-minute drive into Singapore and at weekends would go over as often as possible as Johor Bahru was not geared for ex-pat life.

“But that was probably the toughest role I’ve had, to be honest. There were lots of factors. We were an hour out of the main town in a small village, which presented logistical issues as the daily commute was 90 minutes each way.

There were also lots of different grass types and ages within the 45 holes and with the first being grassed three years earlier than the last, you can imagine trying to open 45 holes at the same time and achieve consistency. We also had 120 greenkeepers on the site and very few ex-pats with greenkeeping experience,” revealed Jordan.

“You’ve got a guy who’d just learned to write his name in English six months before and we were trying to train him to mix fertiliser and apply chemicals, the risks are high”

At the end of his two-year visa, Jordan decided that he didn’t want to apply for another, as that would have meant him working there for a further two years.

“Troon Golf said that they had a job that might suit me. It was in Prague, in the Czech Republic, which would be only an hour’s flight back to Bulgaria. It was to build a new course with architect Kyle Philips, who I’d already worked with back in Abu Dhabi.”

Look at me now!

Look at me now!

So that was the next project and Jordan fell into the routine of flying to work on Monday morning, returning home on Thursday night and spending the three days at home working on the admin side of the job. All very well until Covid – and Jordan was stranded for 12 weeks in Prague away from the family!

It did bring to the fore one of the issues which wasn’t so commonplace in the middle east.

“You would automatically think that coming back to Europe would be easier than in Dubai or Malaysia but it’s not because English isn’t the first or even second language.

“Go to the Czech Republic with a daughter who speaks English and Bulgarian, which school do you put them into, because they all speak Czech . In Dubai, there are so many international schools and English is the first language.”

The Prague course was another to be marked down as a huge success, winning Europe’s Best New Course and the Czech Republic’s Best Course for a few years’ running.

“When I fi nished there, Troon Golf called and ask me if I wanted to go back to Dubai. They had a potential job for me and I could take the wife and kids (number two having since joined the family).

“One of the benefits of working in the Middle East is that the company pays for your kids’ schooling at an international school,” he said.

“So that is where you find me today. I’ve got three golf courses, all different styles – Arabian Ranches,Dubai Hills and The Montgomerie.

We are also constructing another 18 holes on Dubai South, close to a new airport which is being built.”

Asked to describe his day-to-day life you get a genuine feel for how far Jordan has come from the schoolboy replacing divots at Letham Grange back in Angus.

“I’m not the guy who has to be here at five o’clock in the morning. That’s not my role because I’m dealing with stakeholders across different departments which include weekly financial forecast and business review meetings and project development across a wider portfolio than golf. So I take the kids to school at 7.30 and two days a week I’ll come to my office to work on admin solely from a business point of view. For the other three days I’ll head to one property and for the first 90 minutes the Superintendent and I will drive the golf course and we’ll discuss plans for the week, how the current programs are going and share ideas,” said Jordan, adding that the children also go to a Bulgarian school every Sunday in Dubai to keep up with their home curriculum.

“Then we organise to meet every manager from that club from F&B, Security, Golf Operations, Sales and Marketing and we sit down together for half an hour for a coffee. Basically, the accountability of running three golf clubs is split between two of us, myself and a director of golf. A combined 167,000 rounds of golf a year and a membership base of 1,334 including social members,” said Jordan, who added that The Montgomerie alone does 62,000 rounds a year and every one is driven in a golf cart, so there are 290+ carts total, maintenance of which is also carried out by his mechanics.

“At the moment I’ve got 42 people at The Montgomerie, 26 at Arabian Ranches and 36 at Dubai Hills in agronomy plus engineering but I’m currently spending more time with the developers than on agronomy.

The owners are the biggest developers in Dubai and actually built the current tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa.”

With a wealth of experience at this fingertips, Jordan is in the position where he can predict how long it should take to get a golf course to the level it should be.

“I know, depending on the size of the property and the number of rounds that are being played how long it is going to take me to get the course to where an ownership or membership want it. It could be two years, it could be three. Once we have reached the level, in the past, that would be the time for me to get back into the construction side, but now I’m thinking of the family and unless a stand-out job comes along, I think we will be here for the foreseeable future.”

Having worked around the world, Jordan is well-placed to offer advice to anyone who harbours a desire to spread their wings.

Look at me now!

Look at me now!

“I know of people who have decided to venture out of the UK and they’ve gone to France, or they’ve gone to Germany or Belgium and they’ve said it was too hard and returned home within six months.

“It’s not like volunteering at a golf tournament where everything from visas, transport, SIM cards, food and accommodation is laid on for you.

“Take Malaysia as an example. I would leave my wife every day in a city with very few ex-pats and she’d be an hour away from me. She had to fi nd the local doctors, the local post offi ce, the local car registration centre and it’s all in the local language.

“It can be tough, especially if you have a two year-old,” he said, adding that his admiration for his better half knows no bounds.

Wherever he has been he has tried to learn some of the local language.

“I always try and greet people in their own language, even if it is just to say ‘Good morning. Nice to meet you. I’m Jordan’. I then go on to ask if we can continue in English. They appreciate that you have made the effort.”

It would be fair to say that Jordan has come a long way since that careers’ meeting back in the mid-90s. His mum and dad have forgiven him and are regular visitors to not only spend time with their grandchildren but also to enjoy the delights of Dubai.

It would also be very fair to describe his career as exciting, rewarding, demanding and fulfilling.

You would not describe it as “silly”.

You can follow Jordan on social media on Twitter @golfagronomy and on Instagram, golf _agronomy

Avoiding a sticky wicket

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Avoiding a sticky wicket: Scott MacCallum speaks with Ian Smith, Sports Turf Consultant for St Alban’s School, about climate change, sustainability – and the days when meeting Elton John was a regular occurrence.

Think back to last summer and the scorching temperatures.

Avoiding a sticky wicket

Avoiding a sticky wicket

We hadn’t seen anything like it. For many of us we could get by with desk fans and cold showers but for those working outside, and I’m thinking about those in the sports and amenity turf industry, they not only had to cope with the blazing sun, they also had to keep their surfaces alive. Not easy with water restrictions in place.

One man in the middle of it all was Ian Smith, Sports Turf Consultant for St Alban’s School, who, at the time, was also planning the programme for the annual Dennis SISIS Seminar which had been postponed from the previous two years.

“I was going to go down the environmental route with the programme anyway, but then we had the drought last year which made it even more relevant,” explained Ian.

“I had seen (Met Office Meteorologist) Aidan McGivern’s presentation on the 2050 weather forecast and when I was able to get Aidan to appear at the seminar it tied everything in.”

What made Aidan’s presentation all the more impactful was that the “shock factor” of the 2050 forecast was 40-degree temperatures in the UK and what would be the consequences of such heat. Those temperatures were reached in southern England last year – 28 years ahead of Aidan’s schedule.

“That really brought it to a head,” admitted Ian.

That led him to look to shape the day’s programme, which he widened to water resourcing, water capture and recycling, as well as how we should build pitches in the future to retain moisture rather than drain it away and what diseases might become more prevalent in a hotter, drier climate.

The Seminar, which attracted well over 200 turf professionals from around the country, was a huge success but left delegates with a genuine sense of foreboding about what the future will have in store if nothing is done imminently to change from the current course.

But Ian works at a school which has already shown its desire to do the right things when it comes to a sustainable model.

Avoiding a sticky wicket

Avoiding a sticky wicket

“It is something that the school governors are embracing. When we first set up the new site here at the school in 2000 I wanted to install irrigation with recycled water, but at the time mains water wasn’t that expensive and it was felt that with the hassle of cleaning and filtering etc, mains water was the way to go. Obviously in the 20 years since, things have changed.”

Now the school has plans for maximising the water at its disposal including capturing and harvesting rainwater which is something all facilities are going to have to investigate given that the Environment Agency is going to be clamping down on extraction licences for bore holes in legislation which is earmarked for 2028.

“We are looking to capture water from the pavilion roof which should help to reduce what we are drawing off the mains. ln future we are looking at the water which currently disappears in to a soak away on our artificial pitch.

“If we can store that water and re-use it on the sports field or in the pavilion it would be a good way of maximising our water usage,” explained Ian, who added that in an ideal world they would tap into grey water from water treatment plants, but sadly the school is too far away from the nearest one.

Much of the school’s drive towards a more sustainable future is led by the pupils, who have their own Green Council.

“We have meat-free Mondays and they have ensured all our lightbulbs are eco-friendly. From our perspective all our hand tools are now battery powered and when
the bigger pieces of kit come up for renewal, we have been told to look at the battery option if we can.”

There are 23 hectares (73 acres) of pitches at Woollams to be maintained by Ian and Head Groundsman Steve Ascott, Mark, Jason, Riz and Richard. “We are in the same position as most in that
we struggle to find staff . Our last two members of staff employed have not been experienced groundsmen and are of a more mature age, one laid tarmac and the other was a firefighter who had retired at 60 but wanted to keep working. They have both been brilliant.”

It is not just the pupils of the school that use the pitches. The Old Albanians, the school’s old boys’ club, have 30 of the 73 acres some of which they sub-let to Saracens Rugby, with the professional club spending quite a bit of money ensuring their two pitches were well-watered during the drought.

Ian’s own path to a top grounds management job started in familiar fashion, and familiar surroundings – an unhappy school classroom. So many successful turf professionals struggle academically until a light goes on in their heads when they discover a subject which really makes them click.

“It was classic really. I was no good at school. Both my kids are dyslexic and I think I was too. But I was just told I was stupid as pupils were told bluntly then. I was the invisible kid in the classroom who spent his time looking out of the window, because I’d far rather have been outside,” he recalled.

Avoiding a sticky wicket

Avoiding a sticky wicket

“I’d have loved to have been a professional sportsman, but I never made the grade. However, Watford FC was my big passion and in the school holidays they used to take kids on to do jobs, like painting the crash barriers. Some of the jobs were just horrible but rather than get £2 a week doing a paper round, I was getting £25 a week.”

There is one particular job which remains stuck in Ian’s memory – and not for any good reasons!

“There was an old wooden stand, and this was just before the fi re which burned down the wooden stand at Bradford and people had been dropping rubbish through the gaps in the floorboards. The Fire Officer said that it was a real fi re risk and that we had to clear it out.

“So I spent six weeks, the whole of the school holidays, being lowered down between some floorboards that had been removed and picked up rubbish. The pile was taller than I was. I had to pick it up, put it in a bin and then pass it back up through the floorboards. I looked like a panda when I got out.”

He loved all the work maintaining the stadium, but particularly when he got out onto the pitch.

When he got to 16 and everyone else returned to school or went into sixth form he just turned up again at Vicarage Road.

“They asked why I wasn’t going back to school and I just said I didn’t fancy it. So they said that they might as well keep me on then. I signed a contract and that was that.”

Ian was at Vicarage Road for two and a half years before moving on to North London Polytechnic which was the Watford Training Ground where he worked for a further six years.

There can’t be many who get a reference from an England football manager, but Ian did – from Graham Taylor, while he was also on-hand to see that famous football club owner Elton John at first hand.

“Elton had a football pitch in his back garden which we used to look after. He was always around the club, popping into the tearoom. He liked it because we all treated him like a normal person and took the mickey. He loved that we treated him like one of the lads.”

Ian used to cycle the 18 miles each way from Luton to Watford to work and it was this journey which was to open the door to his links with St Alban’s School.

“I used to cycle past this beautiful little sports ground which belonged to St Alban’s School and I always looked at it with envy. Then I heard on the grapevine that the school wanted a bigger site – this one was just 16 acres – and being the cocky, confident person, I was I went to the school and said that I gathered that they wanted to build a new sports ground. I was the man to do it for them. I was 23 or 24 at the time.”

The bravado paid off as, armed with his Graham Taylor reference, the school bursar was impressed and said that there was a deputy groundsman job available and that the Head Groundsman, had two years until he retired.

“That would give me two years to prove that I could do what I said I could do.”

All went to plan up until the part about moving to the new site when three public inquiries stood in the way of a swift build. It wasn’t for a further nine years that it was finally finished.

“I was involved right from the start, working with the STRI and the Head of Sport to decide the requirements of the new facility and where everything should go,” said Ian.

He was also to sit in on all three inquiries alongside the school’s barrister so, if required, they could counter the arguments put forward by the local council.

Avoiding a sticky wicket

Avoiding a sticky wicket

“It was a fascinating few years,” he said with genuine understatement. Such heavy involvement did mean that when construction finally got underway, he was front and centre when it came to pitch construction so what he was left to maintain was exactly what he had specified.

Construction started in 2000 and finished in 2002.

“The pitches are still performing 21 years on. We did think that they would start to give us problems by now but we have installed secondary drainage and Sand master a couple of pitches each year. In many ways its strength is also its weakness because it drains so well all the time, drains are at four metre centres and we ameliorated lot of sand and then top dress every year. So we do get the situation we found last year with the drought. But you very rarely call a match off because it’s too dry.”

Ah yes, that drought. With Saracens using two of the pitches, the grounds team were using mobile sprinklers for two pitches on the old Albanian side and two on the school side, every school match was played on those two rather than the usual six they would have at their disposal.

“They had to amend match timings and they were played one after another starting at 9am and going on well into the afternoon.”

So, what happened to that original playing field which caught young Master Smith’s imagination and caused him to move away from his beloved Watford?

“That’s sad. I worked on it for 13 years before we moved to the new site and I put my heart and soul into it. It’s covered in houses now. The day the diggers came in, as a joke, I lay across the square with banners saying, ‘Save My Square’,” he laughed.

But for now, Ian is planning how to save his newer responsibility from the ravages of climate change and the rapidly increasing temperatures.

Feast of knowledge at Dennis & SISIS seminar

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Feast of knowledge at Dennis & SISIS seminar: For more than 10 years Dennis  Sisis have held pre-season  indoor seminars so it was fantastic,  after an enforced absence since  2020, have it back in the calendar.

The “Cricket Pit­ Maintenance in a Changing Environment” Seminar at St Albans School Woohham Trust,  one of the regular hosts, offered the 200 delegates a feast of knowledge and a genuine sense of normality.

Feast of knowledge at Dennis & SISIS seminar

Feast of knowledge at Dennis & SISIS seminar

The programme was devised by the school’s Head of Grounds, Ian Smith and for the morning session at least, hit delegates like a sledge hammer.

The extremely polished Robert Ja‑ , of Howardson Group, was the Master of Ceremonies and he did an excellent job all day of keeping to time and pit­ ing in comments and questions to ensure a smooth running show.

A weather forecast for 2050 and information that abstraction licenses may be revoked or restricted in 2028 offered a glimpse into the future that turf managers would perhaps describe euphemistically as “challenging”.

The weather forecast came from Met Office meteorologist Aiden McGivern who delivered his paper via video. He admitted that the projections he had included were two years old but that already some of the extremes in temperature had been rea­ched.

He talked about regularly topping 40 degrees in the UK – a level that created a new British record last summer – but that it would become a common occurrence. Aiden also said that temperatures in India would hit the high 40 degrees, and that there would be bans on outdoor working whi­ch would impact farming and, of course, sports turf maintenance.

Aiden was followed by Andrew House, of the Environment Agency, who broke the news about the changes to extraction licenses whi­ch will be brought in in 2028. Anyone hoping that this might result in a more beneficial outcome for turf managers would undoubtedly be viewed as optimistic at best.

Ton Hanson, Managing Director of Environmental Solutions International, and George Warren, Anglian Water’s Integrated Water Management Lead, looked at what we might be facing over the next few years and what water might be available to the amenity sector, or not, as the case may be.

With the picture painted it was time for two well known faces to come up with solutions.

Alex Vickers, now a turf consultant but with 25 years of experience at TGMS and as Director of the MSc programme in Sports Surface Te­chnology at Cranfield University, and Dr Christian Spring, the STRI’s Group Principal Scientist, spoke on “Root Zones for a Changing Climate” and “Pests and Diseases of the Future” respectively.

Complete with red bucket and a sponge Alex was able to illustrate how water operated in rootzone while Christian identified whi­ch diseases and pests would thrive in hotter dryer summers and wetter winters.

The morning was a well balanced and thoughtful session and perhaps was a case of better off knowing what we are likely to be facing in the short, medium and long term, than innocently thinking that everything would remain mu­ the same and that the weather we have been experiencing lately is nothing more than a blip.

After lunch­ provided by the s­chool catering staff , the afternoon session ki‑ ed off with Dr Iain James, the ECB’s Head of Facilities Services. Iain spoke on “What Does Sustainability Mean for Grass Roots Clubs?” and covered everything from recycling old kit whi­ch carried old sponsors names to stripping parts from no-longer-used mowers.

There could be no better duo to deliver the final formal talk “Cricket Pit­ Preparations – difference between north and south” than Vic Demain, Head Groundsman at the Durham CCC, the most northerly Test ground in the world and Karl McDermott, who was Head Groundsman at Hampshire CCC, the most southerly Test Ground in England, and now Head Groundsman at Lords.

Vic and Karl know each­ other inside out and were able to josh and joke while offering the assembled gathering some insights into both their jobs. In Vic’s case the earlier and earlier start to the season is an added factor while Karl spoke of the complications created by the slope when watering the most famous ground in cricket.

The day ended with a Q&A Session with Vic and Karl, as always, sharing their knowledge on a wide range of subjects.

Sponsors for the day were Turf Matters; Stuart Canvas Group; DLF Seeds; RT Machinery; Boughton; SIS Grass; Grounds Training; Mansfield Sand; Origan Amenity Solutions; Turf Tank and White Horse Contractors.

Video game that mirrors real-life

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Video game that mirrors real-life: We’re sure many Turf Managers relax by coming home from work, having dinner and then settling down in front of the computer to play games. No doubt there are some experts in Minecraft, or Grand Theft Auto but most will be no more than casual players.

However, a new game is guaranteed to uncover some of the top players in the country from the ranks our turf professionals.

Video game that mirrors real-life

Video game that mirrors real-life

Lawn Mower Simulator is a video game developed by a Liverpool-based company, Skyhook which allows you to delve into the serene British countryside on real world licenced mowers. These include manufacturers such as Toro, Sitga and Stag. LMS enables you to experience the day-to-day running of your lawn mowing business while exploring the charming scenery on display.

The idea came into the mind of Managing Director, David Harper, one afternoon as he observed landscapers at work in the park.

“It was that moment that led development on the project to commence in January 2020 and was released in August 2021 to Steam and Xbox Series S|X. Lawn Mowing Simulator is now available on Xbox One. We brought together our highly skilled team here at Skyhook with our publisher Curve Games to bring our vision to life,” explained David.

So now you can take your work home and keep your grass cutting skills as sharp as ever!

Conserving water for the future of turf sports

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Conserving water for the future of turf sports: It’s official – fresh water supplies are dwindling, demand for water is steadily rising, and regulations on how much and for what purpose water can be used are becoming increasingly tightened. Finding ways to use water more efficiently is no longer an environmental nice to have; it’s a fact of life for most turf facilities today and imperative for our industry’s future.

As a turf manager you’ll always need water – it’s a fundamental building block of turf – but there are a number of steps you can take to influence how much water you need.

Conserving water for the future of turf sports

Conserving water for the future of turf sports

One of the biggest potential impacts on your water consumption can be made by redirecting water that already exists.

Plant selection can also play an important role in how much water is needed to keep your property at its visual best. Choose turf varieties such as fine fescues that require less water than others such as perennial ryegrass.

Even with these changes, irrigation is still essential and ongoing maintenance of your irrigation system is an effective way to reduce the amount of water wasted. Moisture sensors, weather monitors and other high-tech tools are also available to help you use your water conservatively.

Even after irrigation, there is still one more hurdle to getting water to your turf as efficiently as possible: your soil. How well your soil performs can have a tremendous impact on how much water you use.

Soil:water repellency interferes with how even the most well-placed water moves, leaving some areas a little too dry while making some a little too wet. This is certainly not a new phenomenon, but research indicates that it is much more common than previously thought.

Water repellency is one of the most pervasive water use issues, and it is also one of the easiest and most cost-effective to fix. Soil surfactants lower the surface tension of water and restore the wettability of effected soils, allowing water to move into and through the profile more efficiently. This reduces the amount of water lost to run-off and preferential flow

“Revolution is one of the very few products that makes a dramatic difference and actually changes the way turf is managed. It affects everything including the turf, the distribution of water, fertilisers, and other materials” – Sam Rhodes, Woodhall Spa GC.

Most courses have best management practices in place for their properties, but not all commit them to paper in a formal document. There are a number of resources available that provide guidance and templates for creating one, but should you bother? Absolutely.

Water conservation is a realistic goal, with both environmental and financial upsides.

Like it or not, the call for sustainability – and the challenges that presents – are going to be big issues for a long time. Doing what you can at your course does more than just protect a diminishing global resource – it protects your course, your job, and the future of the sports turf industry.