Tag Archive for: Park

Fast Greens At Knole Park GC

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Fast Greens At Knole Park GC: Located within the boundaries of Knole Estates in 1,000 acres of outstanding Kent parkland and with 600 deer roaming freely around the estate is a club like no other. 

Knole Park is one of the most unique courses in the country; not only for the aforementioned reasons, but also for the fact that this one course plays home to two clubs. 

Fast Greens At Knole Park GC

Course manager at the club, which is home to Knole Park Golf Club and Sevenoaks Town Golf Club, is Gavin Kyle who has been at the club for 15 years. Gavin keeps a regular annual machinery replacement programme and this year he had a focus on choosing the right machines to create firm, true, fast surfaces, which is where Toro joins the story.  

 “It is important to consistently maintain a challenge for players,” says Gavin. “It’s for this reason that recent years have seen us extend the course by 200 yards, with further extension planned in the next year. There is a fine balance between offering a good game to all golfers, including those with a five handicap and below. We have players of all abilities across our two-club membership including a lot of scratch players and our greens needed an update this year to offer a consistent challenge to all.  

“When choosing our next greens machines we checked out the market, going through rounds of demos from distributors. If I’m honest I haven’t bought Toro since I’ve been at Knole Park, so for 15 years! But Toro is renowned for its greens machines in particular so were naturally included on the demo list. What appealed with the Greensmaster TriFlex 3420-H machines, which we went for, was that they’re hybrids. I sought to reduce the risk of hydraulic leaks on the greens and I wanted the advanced control these machines can offer.” 

The TriFlex Hybrid’s electric cylinder circuit is designed to eliminate up to 90 percent of hydraulic leaks, and the Turf Guardian leak detection system provides immediate audio and visual indication of possible leaks. Plus, the electric cylinders have less drag and spin more freely than hydraulic motors providing a sharp cut which leads to firmer and faster greens, exactly what Gavin is after. “Firm, true and fast greens is what we’re all after and the Toro TriFlex is helping us achieve this at Knole Park,” he confirms.  

Providing the advanced control Gavin mentioned is the machines’ Info Centre, which has an easily customised clip for different heights of cut as well as other operational settings to give complete machine control on cylinder speed, hours of function, system voltage for cylinders and diagnostic descriptions. It’s this that provides the advanced control that appealed to Gavin in the TriFlexes.  

But as Gavin goes on to say, it’s never just as simple as the machines: “A machine is often only as good as the backup that comes with it. We’re dealing direct with Reesink Turfcare for the first time and we’ve found that to be a great experience so far.” 

It seems opportune that Toro arrives back at Knole Park for the first time since the 1970s in the year that it hosted the Tillman Trophy, the tournament widely attributed to changing the face of amateur golf. We’re sure with Toro on side, Gavin and his greenkeeping team of six will change the challenge of the course for all its members.

For more information, visit: www.reesinkturfcare.co.uk

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New Pitch A Hit At Castle Park

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New Pitch A Hit At Castle Park: Several hundred thousand pounds was spent by Doncaster Knights on a brand new main pitch at Castle Park over the summer and it’s proving to be money well spent.

“We are into February now and the pitch is still looking good in the areas where you traditionally get some wear and tear despite Doncaster Phoenix also playing on it,” said head groundsman Lee Blagden.

“Whereas with a traditional grass pitch the grass roots are just below the surface the roots on our pitch go into a synthetic matrix mat and that makes them much stronger and less prone to damage.

“Everyone loves playing on a well-grassed pitch at the start of the season and what the new pitch – which is 100 per cent natural grass – is designed to give you is a similar surface throughout the season even though you do lose some of the grass.

“Due to the fact that we open the pitch up with a machine called a procore, which goes down five inches, it helps to avoid compacting the soil and softens the blow when players are tackled and hit the ground hard.

“The work we do also helps players’ boots dig in a bit more and gives them a better footing. With the pitch also being level and having no ruts it should help reduce ankle and knee injuries.

“We’ve been lucky with the weather so far this winter. We’ve had the rain but because of the new drainage system, which is absolutely fantastic, the rain drains away very quickly and we’ve had no puddles or soft areas.”

This week’s weather, as was the case in late December, has posed different problems.

“Because it is 100 per cent grass you have exactly the same situation as with a traditional pitch if you’ve got frost,” said Lee.

“As we’ve done in recent years we cover the pitch with covers, which we’ve done this week, if frost is forecast.

“The covers we use will generally protect against frost down to around minus 5.

“We also use them if snow is forecast.”

Although the end of the season is almost three months away, Lee and his team don’t intend to let the grass grow under their feet whilst doing just that.

“We are looking at doing an over-seed later this month at a time when the team haven’t got a home game which will probably take about two weeks to come through,” he said.

“We use a dimple seeder and that opens the ground up and lets you put a couple of seeds in and then it covers it to keep the birds away.

“We’ve already started to see some growth when we had a few warmer days towards the back end of last month.

“If I come across any areas showing wear during the winter months, and the weather is warm enough, then because of the new sprinkler system we’ve installed under the pitch we can put some new seed on the surface and it will germinate and grow.”

Although Lee and his staff are delighted with the way the pitch is looking, he says there is more work involved than with a traditional pitch.

“I would say there is double the work,” he claimed. “For a start you’ve got to make sure that the pitch is clean both after training and after matches.

“We’ve some mowers which are like a basic home mower and we go up and down and clear all the debris (old grass, mud) off the pitch so all the root base and leaf is all clean

“With it being a sand-based pitch you’ve got to try and keep your sand and plant clean.”

Lee and his staff are also charged with the upkeep of the five other pitches on the Castle Park site used by the junior section and the various senior teams below Championship and Midlands Premier level.

Knights also train on the outside pitches during the week in addition to two 40-minute sessions on the main pitch (weather permitting) and the weekly captain’s run on a Friday.

Doncaster RLFC have also used the facilities, though not the first team pitch, during the last couple of months for pre-season training

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Richard Peel Groundcare keep the water moving at Dyrham Park

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Richard Peel Groundcare keep the water moving at Dyrham Park Golf and Country Club: Richard Peel Groundcare has installed sand-banding on 14 greens at Dyrham Park Golf and Country Club to enhance their primary drainage system.

The picturesque Hertfordshire course is renowned for its water hazards, with several placed across the 6,497 yards, but keeping water off the greens is what head greenkeeper, David Hicks was concentrated on.

Richard Peel Groundcare keep the water moving at Dyrham Park

The club had new drainage installed in their greens in 2015 and to make the system more efficient David wanted to use sand banding to link the two systems together, prompting him to use Richard Peel Groundcare’s Imants SandCat for the job.

“We’ve had main drainage installed at a deeper depth on our greens and we just wanted to keep the top surface open, and link the two systems up,” David said. “We wanted to remove the surface water and the sand will aid it getting into the lower drains and prevent any standing water.

“There are four sand based greens here that drain like a sieves so we didn’t have any work done on those, but it did go over 14 of our greens and our putting green which is the size of two greens.

“We’ve had some rain on the course and I’m pleased with how the water has drained through so far, albeit a small amount.”

Richard Peel (contact number is 07930 336594) places great emphasis on having the best machines for the job and this has led to investment in the highest quality possible, in this case the SandCat. “The SandCat offers sand injection to 10-15mm and uses de-compacting blades that cause very little disturbance and have minimal recovery time.” He explains

“Its compact size makes it ideal for greens and tees, and these factors combined are why the 14 greens at Dyrham Park now have consistently draining greens.”

But it wasn’t only the machine that impressed David. He also commended the workmanship and management of the work, which had to be completed during the clubs’ maintenance week.

“Because the project was going on during our maintenance week it was important that we were able to get on with the other work we had on, so it was important for us to be able to leave the operator on his own to work,” David explained.

“The operator, Tom, was a conscientious hard-working lad who picked up our course really quickly and used a good bit of common sense, so we were very comfortable with leaving him to get on with the job.

“I was very happy with the service overall because sometimes you have contractors offer things they can’t deliver, so it was very refreshing to work with a company who delivered on what they said.”

Overall the project took four and a half days to complete, with one day lost due to 51mm of rainfall over 24-hours that stopped all work on the course. However, at a rate of six greens a day all work was completed well within the pre-arranged time frame.

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