Tag Archive for: decisions

Course quality the most important factor influencing decisions

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Course quality the most important factor influencing decisions: According to a new survey from Carr Golf, 90% of UK golf club members say that year-round course quality will impact their membership decision.

When asked to rank membership factors, course conditioning dominates at 55%, significantly ahead of value for money (39%), tee time availability (39%), and price (22%).

Course quality the most important factor influencing decisions

Course quality the most important factor influencing decisions

The Challenge: High Expectations, Changing Climate

While current satisfaction among club members is high, with 78% of members satisfied or very satisfied with their membership, expectations are even higher. 88% expect good to excellent course conditioning year-round, a standard that’s becoming increasingly difficult to meet for course managers.

The UK experienced its hottest summer on record in 2025, 1.5°C above the long-term average. These volatile conditions, dry summers paired with mild, wet winters, are stretching maintenance operations to their limits.

Ed Pettit, Managing Director of Carr Golf Maintenance, explains: “Many clubs are still grappling with inadequate equipment, resources and practices to deal with the challenges they now face. Clubs must invest in irrigation optimisation and water storage to manage summer stress, while mild and wet winters are increasing pressures on drainage and year-round playability.

“On top of this, the chemistries at the disposal of course managers are limited and less curative, making it extremely difficult to overcome disease outbreaks.”

The Solution: Data-Driven Course Management

With year-round course conditions directly linked to membership growth and retention, golf clubs require a more strategic approach to meet the standards customers expect.

Carr Golf Maintenance uses a data-driven programme based on 13 key performance indicators (KPIs) to track, measure, and optimize course performance, operational efficiency, and regulatory compliance. Recently, in the UK, the company partnered with Burhill Group Limited (BGL) to enhance agronomic standards, elevate playing conditions and maintain sustainability certification at five of its venues across England.

“We consistently see a strong correlation between improved KPI scores and increased golfer satisfaction, membership retention and growth,” says Pettit.

“For clubs to meet member expectations, manage evolving weather, and stay compliant with environmental regulations, a comprehensive agronomic programme isn’t optional, it’s essential.”

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New Turf Advisor app to support management decisions

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New Turf Advisor app to support management decisions: The new Turf Advisor app from Syngenta will now give greenkeepers, turf managers and agronomists instant access to a wealth of key information and advice to help make better decisions for day-to-day actions and planning.

Fully customisable for any location and situation, the revolutionary Turf Advisor app provides essential weather data and turf management models, presented in a clear dashboard that can be tailored and adapted through the season to focus on imminent issues and challenges faced.

New Turf Advisor app to support management decisions

New Turf Advisor app to support management decisions

UK & Ireland turf managers will be the first to have access to the immense global Syngenta investment in supporting turf managers and agronomists to make more effective sustainable turf management decisions.

The displayed data sets in Turf Advisor have been specifically selected as factors that influence turf health and management, including rainfall, leaf wetness, humidity, soil temperatures, Day length and evapotranspiration, for example.

Uniquely, it displays both the historic weather data for recent days that will have impacted on current turf health and quality, along with the forecast information for the coming days helping turf managers understand where they sit in a weather pattern, helping them to make management decisions.

Furthermore, the app makes many of the renowned Syngenta turf disease forecasting models more accessible and easier to use – enabling turf mangers to instantly assess risks, set risk thresholds tailored to their site and plan their actions. GreenCast disease models available include microdochium patch, anthracnose, grey leaf spot and a new for Syngenta UK & Ireland specific Smith-Kerns model for Dollar spot pressure forecasting.

Registered users can select and change which of the data sets they have showing on their personalised dashboard, and the order they display. That will enable their dashboard to be tailored through the year – to focus on microdochium patch factors coming into autumn high risk periods, for example, then adapted to better cope with managing grass growth rates in the spring.

Turf Advisor incorporates the Growing Degree Day calculator that has proven the most favoured digital support tool on the Syngenta Turf website, along with an exciting new Growth Potential model. The two can be used in conjunction to more accurately predict growth patterns and product application timings. Importantly, users can now see their cumulative GDD tally in real time, to plan actions and application timings on the move.

Also built into the app is a clear spray window forecast, which can prove crucial in ensuring applications are made at the most appropriate timing and in the optimum conditions to improve efficacy and accuracy.

Syngenta EAME Technical manager, Glenn Kirby, has been instrumental in developing the Turf Advisor app. As a former course manager, his practical experience has ensured the app delivers the information he would use in making turf management decisions every day.

“The app has been entirely designed from the viewpoint of a practical greenkeeper or turf manager,” he reported. “We all know that subjectively we are using data around the weather and our own experience of the course to make decisions.”

“With Turf Advisor we now have objective data and records that can help support stronger practical turf management decisions. It in no way replaces the turf manager’s experience, but helps to support and validate their decsions,” he pointed out.

It has taken many of the aspects of the pioneering and globally renowned GreenCast website and added a whole raft of new elements selected to support turf management – and made it readily accessible and easy to use in an app.

“Microdochium attacks are influenced by a multitude of factors, for example,” he advised. “The GreenCast microdochium model will pinpoint when there is the highest risk of outbreaks according to rain and temperatures, but for the most effective proactive strategies it should be used in conjunction with leaf wetness, humidity, GDD and Growth Potential to assess how it will impact on the turf and immediate implications.

“All those factors can be instantly viewed on the dashboard in the Turf Advisor app.” Users can set two profiles within the app enabling them to truly customize for their needs.

Syngenta trials of new fungicides and biocontrols will now include a Turf Advisor led programme, so that the launch of new products can be supported by the digital tools and recommendations.

Turf Advisor app is now available to download free for Apple and android devices, from the app Store or Google Play, with direct links from the Syngenta website:

https://www.syngentaturf.co.uk/turf-advisor-app

Users can follow a series of YouTube videos with suggestions of how to set up their dashboard and useful factors to focus on for potential challenges over the coming months. Further seasonal advice will be provided through the GreenCast Advisory Blog and On the horizon podcast.

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GDD Calculator aids more accurate decisions

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GDD Calculator aids more accurate decisions: A new Syngenta GreenCast Growing Degree Day calculator is set to provide turf managers with a more accurate tool to help make better decisions on timing for Primo Maxx II applications and other actions.  

The GreenCast GDD Calculator will automatically generate a predictive email notification when a user defined Growing Degree Day (GDD) target is approaching – in time for greenkeepers to assess local conditions and to decide what actions to take.   

GDD Calculator aids more accurate decisions

GDD Calculator aids more accurate decisions

Commenting on the live launch of the GDD Calculator on GreenCast this week (11 May 2020), Syngenta Technical Manager, Glenn Kirby, said: “We know that GDD can be a useful guide to many turf management actions.  

“However, from my own and other greenkeepers’ experience, the challenge in a busy working schedule is finding the time to regularly record the temperature information and the reliability of that weather data source. 

“The GDD Calculator does that all autonomously, and provides easy to interpret information in time to use for every day decision making.” 

Advancing GDD to a new level, the GreenCast calculator utilises immense data processing capability to compute figures from hourly temperatures throughout the 24-hour period, compared to a simplistic daily high and low temperature conventionally used in GDD calculation.  

“That better reflects the duration of growing conditions through the day, for a more accurate assessment of how turf will actually perform,” advised Glenn. 

Evaluation compared to conventional GDD calculation has highlighted it is more responsive to assess onset of true growing conditions, particularly through early spring, and as growth declines in the autumn.       

Users can set their own target GDD figure, or multiple targets if GDD is being used to aid decisions on different aspects of turf management, such as Primo Maxx II intervals, fertiliser programmes or pest risks, for example. 

Glenn highlights Growing Degree Days have been shown to be an extremely useful guide for timing of turf management decisions. But he cautions that much of the research and many of the models have been based on US trials, under different conditions and with different grass species seen in the UK. 

“The Syngenta GDD Calculator gives far greater flexibility to be able to utilise and interpret a wide range of information resources. But they do all need to be validated against an individual course’s specific conditions to see how they can be applied.  

Uniquely, the Syngenta calculator allows users to adjust the base temperature used in calculations. Whilst a normal base for the UK is 6°C, which reflects the onset of consistent turf growth, Glenn suggests, many US models work from a base of 10°C – which generates hugely different cumulative GDD figures.  

“It is crucial to understand how recommendations have been calculated and the information on which they are based, and then use the GDD Calculator to interpret how that will work on your course,” he advocated. 

Whilst a GDD of 150 may be appropriate for Primo Maxx II intervals on one specific course, for example, he points out another course with a different management style, turf species or soil types, may find they get better results by repeating applications at a GDD of 140.     

The GDD calculator is now being used at STRI in Yorkshire, as part of a new initiative assessing Primo Maxx II applications and intervals to aid turf management under lower intensity lockdown management. 

“For the first time, there will be scientifically assessed GDD data for cool season grasses under UK growing conditions, to enable turf managers to better interpret existing turf growth models for their own individual situations,” added Glenn.  

”It is free and easy to use, so would urge anyone to start gathering the data and assess how it correlates to their own decision making process now, to be able to further integrate GDD in the future,”  

The Syngenta GDD Calculator is available for all UK turf managers, agronomists and researchers registered on the GreenCast website.

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