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Toro “The Best” At Huntercombe

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Toro “The Best” At Huntercombe: Huntercombe Golf Club, celebrating the recent success of being named the number one course in Oxfordshire by the Top 100 Golf Courses, has switched to Toro for its irrigation system because according to course manager Grant Stewart “it’s the best on the market” for covering compact tees and vast greens.

The historic golf course designer Willie Park Junior designed and owned Huntercombe, and to this day the course continues to be played to the original 1901 layout. With some greens on the 18-hole course near Henley-on-Thames over 1000m2, finding the right sprinklers to guarantee thorough, even coverage was of the utmost importance says Grant:

Toro "The Best" At Huntercombe

“Huntercombe has large greens. Altogether they cover 1.7 hectares, with some up to 1000m2! We chose Flex 55 for the job because of the distance they can cover. We installed a ring main around the larger greens to control the pressure, which allowed us to feed the heads with water to cover two directions. The heads on my fourth green put out 16 litres of water a second, guaranteeing every inch of that big green is well watered.”

Applying equally efficient irrigation to the small tees are the Toro T5 sprinklers. Grant continues: “We have the opposite problem on the tees in that some of them are quite small, so we needed to find a sprinkler that would work well in a much smaller area.”

With an operating area of 6.5-12m, it’s easy to see why the T5s fit the bill. But something all the sprinklers have in common, including the FLEX 35 also used on the greens, is their maintenance and ease of use, as Grant explains: “The best feature of all the sprinklers we’ve chosen are the heads which allow us to change the arcs when they are running with no tools. I can move the heads to water any area and don’t have to be concerned that the gears will be damaged.”

The brains behind this irrigation brawn is the Lynx central control system chosen because trying it at another club showed Grant just how easy it was to use. But surpassing all these reasons for opting for Toro irrigation is the fact that Grant, who has been at the club for two years, with previous deputy roles at Sunningdale in Ascot and Fairmont St Andrews has the support of a greenkeeping team of eight, knows and trusts the brand:

“I looked to Toro irrigation to get the same quality of irrigation product as the machinery we use. I have always used Toro machinery and know it to be reliable, so when the time was right to invest in a new irrigation system there was no question I’d go with Toro, it was more a case of which items in the range would best suit our needs.”

Completing the order with Reesink Turfcare is a selection of Toro machinery including the Groundsmaster 3500-D, two Greensmaster TriFlex 3420 mowers, a Multi Pro 1750 and a Workman MDX-D, all of which will no doubt play some part in helping Grant and the team in their endeavours to reduce thatch in the greens. The aim being to improve the species of grass in the playing surfaces and aid regeneration work over the next couple of years, with Grant concluding: “We’re very proud to now be a ‘Total Solutions’ club.”

For more information, visit: reesinkturfcare.co.uk

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Otterbine Diffuses The Situation

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Otterbine Diffuses The Situation: Weeks of high temperatures have turned golf courses across the country brown and triggered Amber health warnings, and while there’s not much to be done to counteract either, one thing you can do is keep your lakes and ponds well aerated to prevent them from becoming stagnate.

A perfect example of this on an epic scale comes from Frilford Heath, the 54-hole championship golf course complex near Oxford, which had an Otterbine Air Flo 3 diffuser installed in its 6m, 10-million-gallon reservoir to aerate the water two years ago. The idea was to make the water good enough quality to irrigate the course, says course manager Sid Arrowsmith.

Otterbine Diffuses The Situation

“We always knew this was a long-term and challenging project. The water comes from a brook downstream through farming fields, full of pollutants and run-off nitrates,” Sid says. “Add to the fact that the silt and sediment at the bottom of the reservoir literally hadn’t seen the light of day for ten years and we knew the diffuser had its work cut out. Even so, none of us expected the extent!

“We experienced, as anticipated, algal growth; the surprise was how much algal growth! Reesink’s Rob Jackson visited us regularly and I think even he was surprised at how abundant it was.”

But that’s nature for you. And water full of nutrients like Frilford Heath’s is, as Sid explains, “going to have an inordinate amount of organic mixture in it”. However, the Air Flo 3 kept busy and Sid “never once doubted” it was up to the job.

The water now is crystal clear again and while Sid is under no illusion that an algal bloom is possible, especially in this weather, the diffuser is ready for the challenge. “There is more oxygen in that reservoir than ever before. If we did incur another algal bloom, the water is in the best possible position to counteract it.”

Meantime, the water is being used all over the course, doing exactly what Sid intended. So, at what saving does this come? “Back in the very dry summers of ‘94, ‘95 and ‘96, we were spending £25,000 a year irrigating the course off the mains. It is literally a fraction of that now. The only thing we use mains water for is washing the turf machinery and toilet facilities.”

For Sid, the Otterbine diffuser has done exactly what he intended it to do – it has made 10-million-gallons of water ready to use and given the club a degree of self-sufficiency it hasn’t experienced before. And as Sid, a greenkeeping veteran, one of only 70 BIGGA Master Greenkeepers in the UK and ex-BIGGA president, says: “greenkeeping wouldn’t be greenkeeping without a few challenges along the way!”

And we guess that statement now includes the country’s longest heatwave for 42 years! It’s not all in the preparation either, Otterbine’s extensive range of efficient aerators can make quick work of smaller ponds and lakes, so if the hot weather is creating problem water features, contact Otterbine’s distributor Reesink today.

For more information, visit: reesinkturfcare.co.uk

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Groundsmen Look To The Heavens

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Groundsmen Look To The Heavens: It was around this time in the long, hot summer of 1976 that things were getting really desperate for the nation’s greenkeepers and groundsmen. It remains the hottest, driest summer on record, though one that this year is threatening to outdo, and it forced those in search of water to keep their well-tended turf alive to get creative.

Exeter City drew up a plan to pour 10,000 gallons of treated sewage effluent on to the pitch. Torquay United trucked in waste water from a sewage works in Heathfield, and Brentford brought in 30,000 gallons from their local treatment plant. The only way the rugby league club New Hunslet could render the ground at their Elland Road Greyhound Stadium soft enough for a cup tie against Keighley to go ahead was to use a tanker full of water collected from a nearby car factory, which was contaminated with oil and “other waste materials”. “Tests on it show that it does not constitute a hazard to health,” wrote the Times, reassuringly.

David Oxley, secretary of the Rugby League, said that though “this is traditionally a hard game for hard men”, playing it on hard ground would be one hard too many. “When it becomes parched and cracks open, that’s the danger point,” he said. “We have suggested that clubs might use purified sewage water, or any similar method. It is very much a local affair. Each club will have to decide for itself but having watched a game last Sunday when it looked more like a battlefield, I think the time is not far off when we shall be forced to call games off.”

The Rugby Football Union and its Welsh equivalent both suggested that clubs should consider cancelling games if pitches remained parched. “We are leaving it to the common sense of the clubs,” a Welsh Rugby Union spokesman said, “but if they did come to us for advice I think we would have to say don’t play unless it rains.”

The Guardian’s Frank Keating spoke to the director of the Sports Turf Research Institute, John Escritt, whose advice to groundsmen was simple: “The first advice is to trust in the power of prayer – and if that doesn’t work, which it won’t, leave the grass long because it can then collect what bit of moisture there might be around at dawn.”

At Cardiff Arms Park there was no need for prayer. Workmen had been laying the foundations of a new stand when the desperate groundsman, Bill Hardiman, pleaded with them to dig at the river end of the pitch to see if they found water. They did, just nine feet down, and again at the opposite end. From then on Hardiman sprayed his pitch for 12 hours a day. “I have had the water analysed and it is quite drinkable,” he said. “I drink it every day.”

Tony Bell, now Middlesbrough’s head groundsman, was just a child in 1976. “I remember thinking it was fantastic,” he recalls. This year Bell and his team, named the best in the Championship last season, have had to cope with similar challenges. “We’ve had dry times before, but not as long as this, day after day after day,” he says. “Irrigation’s OK, but it doesn’t go on the same as rain. It’s never as even. You only need a breath of wind and it blows about. Some parts of the pitch are getting double what they need, others nothing at all.”

Bell has several advantages over 1970s-era groundskeepers, including automatic irrigation sprinklers, moisture meters, consultant agronomists, and four decades’ worth of advances in turf science. Half the seed he laid this summer was tetraploid grass, a new, hardier, stronger kind of rye. He also has a borehole that provides plentiful water to the training ground. Yet still he has struggled. “Temperature has been the biggest challenge,” he says. “The heat basically forces us to put water on during the day just to keep the grass alive, but that also creates disease. We’ve had pythium blight, which is a warm-weather disease you very rarely get in this country. It’s devastating, it just makes the grass go strawlike. We had a lot of pitches that were severely knocked back, and they’re only just recovering now. Down south it’s been 30-odd degrees, which is far more challenging. Up here 21-22 is a normal summer, but 25-plus is a different ball game.”

Christian Spring is UK research operations manager at the Sports Turf Research Institute, and was recently at Carnoustie to monitor playing conditions at the Open. “They’ve not had a huge amount of rain, certainly a lot less than they’re used to,” he says. “It’s been about managing the water reserves that they’ve got and trying to keep everything ticking over so it looks authentic, feels authentic but still plays well as a golf course. This year was an opportunity to hold an Open Championship in true summer conditions. It’s a different challenge. Overwatering can be just as bad as underwatering. As with all things in life, finding the right balance is difficult. The art of a groundsman is knowing when to back off and not be tempted to turn on the tap.”

As this summer continues along its arid path, although this weekend’s rain has brought some relief, it is also about looking beseechingly at the heavens and hoping that at some point nature will take care of that job for you, and ideally before the borehole runs dry, the hosepipe bans kick in and you’re forced to put in a call to the sewage plant.

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The Power Of Deep Aeration

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The Power Of Deep Aeration: The concept of one metre deep aeration, to relieve compaction and improve drainage, really needs to be seen in action to appreciate the long-term benefits. A long and very hot summer with little amounts of rain will, without doubt, lead to compaction and drainage problems on the sports pitch, the golf course and bowling green and inevitably in amenity areas and gardens. Terrain Aeration have produced a new video that shows precisely how to alleviate the problem, using the proven Terralift system that has been in operation for over twenty-five years. As soon as the heavy rains come areas of turf compaction and panning become self-evident with large stretches of standing water.

Normal aeration and scarifying are of course essential to promoting a healthy sward but the penetration isn’t deep enough to get to where the real problem lies. Go down a metre with a hollow probe, using a JCB breaker gun to penetrate the hard compaction in the soil, and release compressed air up to a maximum of 20Bar (280psi). This fractures the soil, creating and opening up the fissures that will allow the water to drain. Repeat the process on a staggered grid pattern at two metre spacings and you ensure each air blast interconnects the underground labyrinth of cracks and fissures.

The Power Of Deep Aeration

As you can see on the Terrain Aeration video, that is how the Terrain Aeration system works but it doesn’t stop there. Dried seaweed is injected on the tail end of the blast and this sticks to the walls of the probe hole and cracks. Over time it expands and contracts with the moisture content and maintains the drainage when the heavier rains fall. Water storing polymers can also be added at this stage as an extra insurance with water retention. The interconnecting system created also allows oxygen and nutrients to get to the roots, while the grass pushes them down to reach the deeper water supply and help promote top growth. The probe holes are back filled with porous Lytag aggregate and finished with the usual top dressing to encourage grass growth over the probe holes. In the case of the golf green, tee or sports pitch play can resume immediately.

Once treated, the area will benefit for many years to come as has been demonstrated by Terrain Aeration over the years for thousands of sports venues, golf courses, parks and amenity areas. The deep penetration process is used to great effect around trees, especially where the ground has become very compacted due to foot traffic. The Terralift system has treated such notable areas as the Royal Parks, Sir Harold Hillier Gardens and many National Trust properties. But it is equally beneficial in relieving compaction and creating drainage on formal lawns and even small gardens as well as sports pitches and golf greens. You can see the video at: https://youtu.be/uw9k35PA5kM

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Las Brisas Invests In The Future

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Las Brisas Invests In The Future: Real Club de Golf Las Brisas, based in Marbella in Spain is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2018, as well as its first full golf course maintenance equipment fleet deal with John Deere and local dealer Agronimer.

Arranged through David Fernandez, the head of Agronimer’s golf division, the new fleet has been acquired in a five-year John Deere Financial agreement worth one million euros, and is supported by full PowerGard maintenance cover. Machinery includes tees, fairway, greens and rough mowers, both compact and larger utility tractors, Gator utility vehicles, sprayers and bunker rakes. The latest E-Cut hybrid electric models now make up 100 per cent of the club’s ride-on greens and fairway mower fleet.

Las Brisas Invests In The Future

Originally created by Robert Trent Jones Sr and more recently redesigned by Kyle Phillips, the 18-hole course is currently ranked #6 in Spain and #37 in continental Europe’s top 100 courses for 2018. It is notable for its raised greens, numerous bunkers and water hazards, as well as the botanical garden style landscaping that features many rare species of plants and trees from all over the world.

Las Brisas general manager Paul Muñoz and course manager Rafael González-Carrascosa head up a team of 24 greenkeeping and workshop staff. They have overseen an ambitious five-year multi-million euro project to redesign and renovate the course, which was necessary because the original design had begun to show its age.

“We felt that a complete remodelling of the golf course was required, but we needed to get the members to agree the necessary investment,” says Paul Muñoz. “A first phase was approved to renovate some aspects of the front nine back in 2012, and it was then that the project gained credibility and members felt that further investment was necessary.

“The final phase of works on the back nine holes was completed in 2015 but then had to be redone after severe flooding in 2016 caused widespread damage, and the course had to be closed for three months. However, once the membership saw what could be achieved they very quickly moved to have the whole course upgraded, and the final three holes were finished last summer.

“Everything has been addressed, from improving the grasses, bunkers, tees and greens to the drainage and irrigation system, as well as relocating several holes to create a better flow of play – even down to redesigning and rerouting the cart paths to make the initial visitor experience more pleasant.

“As a disciple of Robert Trent Jones Sr, Kyle Phillips fully understands his design philosophy, so he was the natural choice of architect for the new design, which is now cleaner, more open and natural. He has maintained the essence of the old course, but brought it more up to date, so it’s a better experience for the golfer. When you play the course now it feels like it’s been here for years, and you realise what a great job he’s done.”

Rafael González-Carrascosa adds: “This new agreement with John Deere and Agronimer includes not only the purchase of all the equipment necessary to keep our course in perfect condition, but also continuous training programmes for the operators and mechanics, customised parts management and tournament support when required.

“One of the key factors in choosing John Deere was that we only had to deal with one supplier, one brand and one dealer offering the right finance deal, so it made things easier all round. The John Deere range is comprehensive and offers good quality engineering as well as reliable dealer service and support.

“We’re very happy with the hybrid electric mowers, particularly the 8000E fairway machines, which were chosen for their quality of cut and light weight. The Gators and tractors are really good machines too, so we’re confident we’ve made an excellent choice. Most importantly, the members are really happy with the improvements we’ve made and the way the course now plays.”

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

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