Eavesdrop a post-round clubhouse conversation and it’s likely you’ll hear golfers talking about the greens. For good or otherwise, the way we perceive how the putting surfaces perform during a round often defines our experience.
Helping golf clubs to prepare and maintain greens is a crucial part of Adam Newton’s role as championship agronomy manager at The R&A. “It’s where championships are won and lost,” he says.
It’s a job that sees him work with host venue greenkeeping teams at R&A Championship Venues, including The Open, AIG Women’s Open and Amateur Championships, as well as clubs like yours.
This year, The R&A are staging championships at courses from Conwy and Gog Magog to Leopard Creek in South Africa and Tanah Merah Country Club in Singapore.
But wherever an event is being staged, regardless of size or infrastructure, the principles of excellence remain. We asked him for some key pointers to help us understand how greens are prepared at the highest level.
How does The R&A help prepare greens at their championships?
We work with clubs for years before an event
We start preparing for the next Open as soon as the last putt drops at the current venue. We’ve got a constantly evolving agronomic plan.
With other venues, which might have been announced as hosts two to three years out from the championship, we’ll start working with them from that point. That might be a historic venue, so we’ll have a good head start, or it might be a new one.
We’ll do an initial visit, identify key objectives and collaborate closely with the greenkeeping team on formulating an agronomic plan to take forward. It is a truly collaborative effort, and the plans put in place extend focus beyond the championship and to a sustainable future at the venue.
As we get closer to the championship, we will focus on adding the final polish to the golf course and really dialling in playing performance. This will involve ensuring the feeding strategy is right, refining the texture of the surfaces and achieving optimal consistency from green to green.
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We make the greens the priority
A great deal of consideration will go into how the greens are set up by our course set up team, and their objectives will differ greatly depending on the genre of golf being played (whether that’s men’s or women’s, juniors or seniors) and the style and design of the course. The weather conditions at the time of the championship will also play a huge role.
In terms of green speed targets, this will depend on many factors, such as the slope, size and difficulty of the greens and also exposure to the elements (especially wind). We generally keep green speeds sensible at 10-11ft and really focus on the consistency between greens. If the wind blows, we will bring speeds down.
One factor to consider is that excessive green speeds will mean that we lose all the interesting hole locations on greens and there will also be a considerable impact on the pace of play.
The firmness of greens presents perhaps the greatest challenge to players and our targets will differ between different genres of golfer due to differences in hitting distances, spin rates, trajectories and also the design of green complexes.
We study speed and firmness closely
Firmness is a measure of the interaction between the ball and turf upon impact with the surface. A firm green will place a real emphasis on accurate ball striking. A softer surface will be more receptive and less challenging, with the ball stopping quickly upon impact.
Green speed is how the ball travels across the surface when putting and chipping. The speed of the surface and the firmness, though they’re interlinked, are quite different.
Sometimes the hardest challenge is correlating the two. Getting firmness into the surface is about the core agronomy of the greens. It’s how the soils underneath are performing and how much moisture is being held.
If organic matter is well managed, you have good drainage properties beneath the green and fine, deep rooted grass species dominating the surface, then you are in a position to dry the greens down heading into a championship. As you dry the greens down, they get firmer.
If the correct agronomy isn’t in place, there will be a limit on how far you can dry the greens down.
With green speeds, it’s all about managing the grass plant at the surface.
Getting the texture of the turf right will be a key element and we can influence this by different mowing strategies. Rolling can also be a useful way of adding polish to the surfaces, although we mostly focus on mowing at the championships as that will give us the most consistent performance.
We are watchful for diseases
The challenges we have at championships are the same that everybody is having. Climate change coupled with the impact of pesticide legislation is presenting increasing challenges.
An example of the impact of climate change in the UK is the disease Dollar Spot. This was rarely seen a few years ago and was mostly confined to warmer climates but we are now seeing it frequently on our shores. It’s very aggressive and targets some of the best grass species and can be difficult to control.
Fairy rings are also a challenge. As we dry the greens down to achieve firm playing conditions at the championships, we can often trigger fairy ring activity. Fairy rings are a natural sight on most links courses but it is important that we ensure that symptoms are only cosmetic and not impacting playing surfaces.
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Turfgrass pests are also incredibly challenging and warmer winters are seeing greater survival rates of grubs like leatherjackets and chafers. Changes to pesticide legislation also mean that it is much more challenging to control these pests.
We have all these challenges at championships and we handle them the same way you would at any venue.
Whether it is turfgrass diseases or pests, we need a holistic and sustainable approach to their management, incorporating a blend of cultural, biological and chemical control strategies. Research and education are also really important parts of us getting better and better at managing these challenges – both of which we are committed to at The R&A.
- This article appears in Your Course, the twice-yearly publication from the British and International Golf Greenkeepers Association. Your Course invites golfers to gain a deeper appreciation of what preparing and maintaining a golf course really involves. Head to www.bigga.org.uk to find out more.
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