Tag Archive for: solve

Atlas Turf bermudas solve problems

in , /by

Atlas Turf bermudas solve problems: The Erbil Hills course in Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdistan region, is the first grass golf course in the country. Designed by architect Cynthia Dye of Dye Designs Group, and managed by IMG, it was largely constructed during the Covid-19 pandemic and will open later this year.

The autonomous Kurdistan Region is currently experiencing some of the fastest economic growth in the world and Erbil, as its capital, is at the heart of that. “Erbil Hills came about because the developers saw what we had done at Dreamland in Baku, Azerbaijan and wanted something similar,” says Cynthia Dye. “The two projects have a lot in common, though they aren’t affiliated.”

Atlas Turf bermudas solve problems

Atlas Turf bermudas solve problems

The Erbil area has a hot summer Mediterranean climate, with mild winters and temperatures often above 40C (104F) in the summer months. There is almost no rain between June and September, but winters are fairly wet. As such, choosing the grasses for the golf course was a tricky problem for architect Dye and her team. “The client wanted the course to be green grass wall-to-wall,” she says. “In Baku, we were able to grow cool season grasses everywhere, but that was obviously not going to work in Erbil. I have a friend who was construction manager for the Ashgabat course in Turkmenistan, which has a similar climate to Erbil and they used Atlas Turf’s Latitude 36 bermudagrass there, with great success.”

Dye therefore specified Latitude 36 for fairways and close roughs. “The contractor was in favor of a different bermudagrass, which would have come from Turkey, but I was not keen, because I wasn’t certain of the quality we would get, whereas I know that Atlas is always reliable,” she says. “With Latitude 36, I knew that we would get through the winters well and that we would have good color in the spring and fall seasons, which are going to be the key golfing months in Erbil. It starts to go off in November and is just greening up now. This gap should close as the grass matures. They will paint it while dormant, but the color will be great in the prime golfing months.”

For outer roughs, Dye specified North Shore SLT seeded bermudagrass, also from Atlas Turf and its partner Pure Seed. “I wanted the roughs to be a different color and texture for definition and, given the client’s desire for wall-to-wall grass, it was obvious that the rough areas were going to be large – there are 22 hectares (54 acres) of outer rough,” she says. “Choosing a seeded bermuda was important for budgetary reasons – if we had tried to use stolons across the entire course it would have been too expensive. But at the same time, it was important that whatever grass we planted was drought tolerant. We have well water, but we don’t have an infinite amount, and putting a lot of irrigation on areas that aren’t in play very much just isn’t feasible.”
For greens, Dye specified Pure Distinction creeping bentgrass, developed by Pure-Seed Testing. “I knew that I wanted bentgrass greens and I have used Pure Distinction quite a bit, including in Baku. I really like it,” she says.

“Obviously, given the climate, if we were going to have cool season greens, we needed a grass with good heat tolerance that also coped well with drought. With Pure Distinction, I am very confident that the greens will be excellent year-round.”

Erbil Hills should open its first nine holes in the near future, with the second nine following fairly shortly.

For the latest industry news visit turfmatters.co.uk/news

Get all of the big headlines, pictures, opinions and videos on stories that matter to you.

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram for fun, fresh and engaging content.

You can also find us on Facebook for more of your must-see news, features, videos and pictures from Turf Matters.

Action required to solve golf’s diversity challenge

in , /by

Action required to solve golf’s diversity challenge: Golf continues to experience unprecedented demand, but it is yet to persuade the public it is a game for all, a new social listening report from Syngenta and Ipsos has found. 

Golf & Social Media: Diversity, published today, is part of a landmark study analyzing 16.1 million social media posts, shares, comments and blogs over a three-year period to help businesses understand what is being said about golf online and respond with customer-centric solutions.

Action required to solve golf’s diversity challenge

Action required to solve golf’s diversity challenge

Despite highlighting successful projects that are making golf more diverse and inclusive, such as Black Girls Golf in the US and the UK-based Muslim Golf Association, the report confirms more work is required to overcome golf’s reputational issues and successfully welcome a wider audience.

Since the pandemic, just 5% of new golfers in the UK are non-white, the R&A’s Post Covid Opportunity Report previously found.

Similarly, in the United States, African American golfers make up just 5% of the country’s 25 million players, yet contribute $4 billion of the total market value.

Claire Martin, Ipsos Social Intelligence Researcher, said: “Golf is aware of its image problem and is trying hard to diversify, but the messages are not always reaching wider audiences and people outside the sport.

“Remarkably, two percent of all mentions in our sample related to Donald Trump and Republicans playing golf. This association does not help dispel the notion that it is a sport for older, white males.”

While the findings underline the challenge golf faces, the report offers solutions and case studies, including Black Girls Golf, founded by Tiffany Mack Fitzgerald, which has built a network of more than 4,000 female players in the United States.

And in a recent podcast interview with Syngenta, Jim Beatty, Executive Editor of African American Golf Digest, said the number of African American golfers could be doubled or tripled, significantly adding to the value of golf and the bottom lines of golf clubs and courses.

Brandon Bell, Syngenta People and Organizational Development Lead, Syngenta North America, offers advice to golf venues looking to build diversity and inclusive into their businesses and making golf welcoming to all: “As a starting point, use local demographic data to better understand the scale of the opportunity to engage with underrepresented groups, then invite these groups to take a survey or join a focus group so you can learn more about their wants and needs – and how you might address those.

“By creating an environment and experience where minority groups feel welcome and valued, and this is reflected in your club imagery and communications, this will help other diverse groups understand that this is a place where they could belong.”

WATCH: Brandon Bell on How to Make Your Golf Club More Diverse

Mark Birchmore Syngenta Global Head of Marketing, Turf and Landscape, who commissioned the report, said: “Golf has long been associated with exclusivity, and this study confirms that it is still widely viewed as a sport for a limited demographic.

“However, there are many examples of golf organisations and businesses making great progress in diversity. Now the sport needs to get better at communicating this progress beyond the industry itself in order to change wider perceptions.”

Data for the report was provided by Ipsos, with 16.1 million mentions of golf on social media in the United States and UK analyzed over a three-year period (2019-2022).

To download this report and all previous Syngenta market studies, visit: www.syngentagolf.com/golf-industry-reports

For the latest industry news visit turfmatters.co.uk/news

Get all of the big headlines, pictures, opinions and videos on stories that matter to you.

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram for fun, fresh and engaging content.

You can also find us on Facebook for more of your must-see news, features, videos and pictures from Turf Matters.

Capillary Bunkers solve elk damage

in , /by

Capillary Bunkers solve elk damage: Elk getting into bunkers has resulted in damage to them at Rock Creek Cattle Company in Montana, designed by architect Tom Doak. But lining the bunkers with the Capillary Bunker system is set to solve the problem.

“When the course was built, the bunkers were lined with a textile product,” says course superintendent Rick Hathaway. “Given the location, some sort of liner was essential. The clue is in the name: the soil here is full of rocks, from pebbles to big granite boulders. With frost heaves in winter, the rocks move up through the profile, and would penetrate unlined bunkers very easily.”

Capillary Bunkers solve elk damage

Capillary Bunkers solve elk damage

But the textile liner could not cope with another problem caused by Rock Creek’s location – wildlife. “We have a large herd of resident elk, about a thousand strong. And they really like our bunkers!” says Hathaway. “Their natural position is head up, so if they are down in a bunker, they have grass at head height. So it makes eating less work for them. Especially in the fall, when they come back out of the mountains, the elk spend a disproportionate amount of time in the bunkers. And they are big, heavy animals. Their hooves inevitably cause damage to a fabric liner, and once there is a little hole, the sand gets through and the situation starts to deteriorate. It got to the point where we couldn’t manage the amount of damage that was happening. I was using six or seven guys two days a week working on liners.”

And elk are not the only wildlife that caused Hathaway sleepless nights. “We have a lot of ground squirrels here and they burrow up through the bunkers. Then the badgers – which want to eat the ground squirrels – dig down after them, and the next morning we have huge holes in our bunkers,” he explains. “A couple of years ago, I went to my greens committee chairman – a committee of one! – and he asked me what keeps me awake at night. I told him and said ‘Let’s start thinking about redoing one day’. The course is a masterpiece and the bunkers weren’t doing it any favours. From a distance, they looked pretty but from a playability point of view they weren’t as good as the rest of the course. A couple of weeks later, he called me and said ‘It’s a go’.”

“I met the Capillary Bunkers rep and started having conversations with him, and I gave a couple of local superintendents a call. I went over to one that was doing a very large renovation of the course and went out for a day and watched them install the product. That gave me confidence in how it is installed and works. Last year, my greens chairman and I made the decision that Capillary Bunkers was the right choice. We did three test bunkers, evaluated different bunker sands, and made our decision.”

The project began in April, with construction being handled by contractor Ridgetop Golf, from Seattle, and the last bunkers were lined at the beginning of June. “We typically open the golf course on May 15, and April is the month I count on getting major course work done, so for the first six weeks of construction, there were no golfers around,” says Hathaway. “When we excavated the bunkers, I had the contractor scrape an inch or two out of the subgrade to make sure we didn’t change the depth.”

Hathaway is delighted with the results. “The bunkers are spectacular,” he says. “We have these jagged faces that have eroded in the thirteen years the course has been open, and that gives them even more character. There’s a little lip and the concrete fits in there. You’d never know there was concrete there.” Hopefully, the elk will concur!

For the latest industry news visit turfmatters.co.uk/news

Get all of the big headlines, pictures, opinions and videos on stories that matter to you.

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram for fun, fresh and engaging content.

You can also find us on Facebook for more of your must-see news, features, videos and pictures from Turf Matters.