Tournament Set Up!

This morning we had one of our full on mornings where all major playing surfaces get cut. The greenstaff were in at 5am preparing the course for the London Irish Charity day. This work mostly goes unseen but anyone who witnesses it will see some sight. Greens were cut and rolled, with fairways,tees and collars all cut. It is an intense 4 hour period as by 9am the staff were all off the golf course. Quite some buzz we can assure you!

Spring Renovations at EGC - Part 2: Fairway Hollow Coring!

The second part of the spring operations was hollow coring the fairways. It was an intense operation and the greenkeeping team were on 12hour days to allow us to achieve our aim. The reason for this was to physically remove high organic content (thatch) from our fairways.


With minimal work done to the fairways in 120 years, as you can image thatch will build up and in big numbers! For the last 3 years we have been adding drainage to our fairways and now halfway through the plan. This consists of installing pipe in the ground and then connecting the system with secondary drainage. The next stage is to improve the top soil and reduce the carpet which sits on top. The program consisted of the following:

• Hollow cored at 50mm spacings with a 12mm tine going 75mm deep
• All cores then collected with our Wessex scarifier set at ground level (to reduce scalping)
• In the afternoons the team would drag mat the debris and blow any remaining to the side
• Once finished any damaged areas would be repaired and GUR added

The fairways are 10 hectares in total and by our estimations we removed 40million cores. The next stage will be to scarify three times per year and finish with a verti-drain in the autumn. We have taken some organic matter cores and have had them tested. It will be interesting to see how these numbers fair over the next few years!

Below is a slideshow of the operation:

Spring Renovations at EGC - Part 1: Greens,Approaches and Collars!

This week the greenstaff have been busy punching holes and applying sand. It's been quite a week. Over 80tonnes of sand was applied to the greens, approaches, collars and all the fairways were hollow cored. We believe it's the first time that the fairways have been hollow cored and it took a lot of effort!

When you have two major projects going on at the same time it requires a lot of organisation and commitment from all parties. From the clubs side we have hole closures, disruption and only allow members to play. On the agronomy side the greenkeeping team work long hard hours and of course there is an expense to everything. We hope its worth it!

As it was two projects we have split this weeks blog in to two parts. Part 1 is below about the greens operation. Part 2 will follow in another blog and contain the fairway operation. We hope you enjoy the read!

Greens, Approaches and Collars 

Two Operations in One!

Our usual spring renovations took place on these areas. They were deep verti-drained at a 200mm depth on a 40mm spacing with a 12mm tine. 80tonnes of sand was applied first and after they had been spiked, the remainder of the week was about brushing the sand in to the holes. It finished with a few vibro-rolls to smooth the surfaces and 'shake' the sand in further. Conditions were ideal and below is a slideshow of the operation complete with captions.

Hay Cutting

This week we have cut and collected the vast majority of 'hay' around the golf course. These areas generally sit out of play and we try and make them look as natural as possible. The big challenge on a parkland course such as ourselves is that the hay can get a bit wild at times and out of control. Finding golf balls at certain times of year becomes an issue. The best and most natural way to deal with this is to remove all the nutrients on a yearly cycle. Hopefully in time the plant will fine down and scrub, coarser plants and weeds will reduce.


The operation is very time consuming. To cut the majority of grass we have a big 'flail' machine which will cut and collect as it goes along. We aim to cut it right down to the base of the plant, but have to do this in stages as the hay is quite tough and matted. To add to the workload there are many areas where a machine can't get in to or it is to dangerous to do so. These areas have to be done with strimmers, with the grass being collected by hand. It is quite labour intense and may take a number of weeks to complete. Hopefully in the long run it will be worth it!

Tricky areas need to be strimmed and hand collected

New Tee added to the front of the 11th

Over the last two weeks we have added a small front tee to the 11th teeing area. Installing a new tee always seems like a simple task, but it is time comsuming and implementing it correctly is a must. The new tee has been added to provide the laides with a slightly forward teeing position and to help wear in this area. A suitable teeing area on a short par 4 should be between 300 and 400m2. Before this tee went in we only had 170m2 and in the winter the tee used to look very tidied. This addtional tee wont get us up to the required size, but it will help to relieve the pressure.

When you are installing any new feature in to a golf course the number one priority is to make sure that it fits in to the landscape. If it doesn't it will look out of place and silly. As we wanted to achieve this we went down in to the ground so it fits the eye nicely. We installed drainage and irrigation systems to make sure it is suitable for both winter and summer. Another thing that we did was that instead of buying turf from outside for the teeing ground, we took the turf from an area on the golf course. This means that the rooting will take immediately and the turf has been maintained to tee standards for many years. It will speed up the process of getting it in play very quickly.


Some of the trees to the right will have to be felled but we will do this at a later date. As you can see from the pictures below, the roots of these trees go all over that area and in to the drainage channels. If we don't remove certain ones, then the condition of this tee will deteriorate very quickly. The ones further up will be 'root pruned'.

Below are a few pictures of the process that went in to installing a new tee.

Tee getting graded

Drainage added

Roots in drainage channels

Rootzone being installed

Roots over teeing area

Wes checking levels

Area levelled

Teeing area turf taken from an area on the golf course

The finished product. 7 days in total!

Tournament Preparation at The London Club

Two of our Greenkeepers attended the World Matchplay at The London Club last week to prepare the course for the tournament. Below is the experience of one of them. Quite a two days!

If you had said to me two years ago that I would have been cutting greens at The London Club on the Volvo World Match Play tournament, I would have wondered about your sanity, but that is exactly what happened!

Here’s my story… Day one: Saturday 18th October. After a very early start to the day (4 a.m. and I’m not even going away on holiday!) My deputy at Ealing Wes Lenihan and myself arrived at the London Club for the team briefing at 6 a.m. It was my first time doing something like this, but Wes has previously worked on a few of these big competitions. Wentworth being one. So expecting nothing more than being allocated bunker raking and blowing duties, I was given my jobs and set out to get my first look at the course, which I have to say was a real eye opener.

The quality and the hard work that the lads had put in prior to the event was clear to see and it looked amazing. A few things that stood out on the day but one was using fresh dry grass clippings spread over fairways then brushed in to colour up the slightly discoloured parts due to the heavy rain that had fallen. The weather that week, and leading up to the competition, had not been fair on the boys in preparation. So much so I heard that they tried to get the helicopter pilot that was flying the players in, to fly over the course to try to move the standing water off the course with his downdraft. This may be a great idea in theory (and maybe this is something we can use at Ealing) but didn't quite work so well in practise!

After a nice pleasant start to the day, things took an interesting turn. I heard after two cuts that the greens were running below 11 feet (which is not where the tour and the London Club wanted them to be), so this involved the greens being cut again. After a discussion over the radio, it was decided to send a 7th two-man team out to cut the greens a third time. This is where it started to get a bit scary as I got asked if I would mind cutting greens. My head was saying ‘don’t do it’, but somehow I managed to say ‘yeah! For sure!’. My confidence wasn’t helped when a colleague, Ollie Hook from Royal Cinque Ports Golf Club, kindly reminded me that it was the World Match Play covered by Sky!

Martyn on the Greens

Suddenly, there I was on a Toro fairway Mower, towing a Toro Flex 21 thinking ‘what on earth have I let myself in for?’. I was cutting greens but the Stimp was still coming back below where they wanted it to be. So this led to another cut, and another cut and after that three more cuts, totalling five!













With more cuts meant that stripes were getting very difficult to see by this stage and after the 5th cut they were running where they wanted it to be, just above 11. My morning ended by cutting three greens 10 times! That was the morning over with and back to the yard, which I have to say was a fantastic set up. We were well fed by the London Club and looked after brilliantly.

Day 2 Sunday 19th October: After coming down from what can only be described as a high after cutting tournament greens, I was back for my second day ready to prep the course for the semi finals and final. So there we were, sitting in the team briefing which was taken by course manager Peter Todd and Head Greenkeeper of the International Course, Paul Kennedy. We were allocated jobs and I was surprised to find that I had been put on the greens team of 8 pairs. When we set out in monsoon like weather the words, ‘what am I doing?’ did come to mind. The greens were cut twice Sunday morning, then rolled and were running at 11.4.  Everyone seemed to be happy with that, so no need for any more cuts before the first groups.

The greens were cut one more time ahead of the final. I am happy to report back that the cutting and course set up went smoothly and it was a pleasure to be representing Ealing Golf Club.

What can I say! I had a very enjoyable two days and would like to thank all the London Club boys for making us feel really welcome. Peter Todd and Paul Kennedy for giving us all this opportunity and looking after us so well. The course you would admit looked fantastic on TV and even more stunning when you were there. It wouldn’t be surprising to see even bigger competitions held there in the future.

Drainage Project Recommences - 2nd Hole

Our drainage project recommenced a couple of weeks ago where we tackled the 2nd hole. Right from the tee, through the fairway and on to the green were trenched, piped and backfilled. All playing areas had turf cut off so that the finished product would be a lot cleaner. In one week we managed to install 2000metres of drainage. That was the easy bit. Over the next couple of weeks we will be picking up snagging areas which can slow things down!

Below is a picture of the area by the 5th tee this morning. It is after 20mm of rain overnight and has come off the 2nd fairway that has been newly drained. The easy bit is moving water off playing areas but the hard bit is then getting it to go somewhere. All our drainage goes in to existing drainage by the river Brent. This is where things can slow down as these areas are generally hard to work around.

Once we have finished the main snagging later this week, the remainder of the month will be working on 'secondary drainage'. We have always said that secondary is as important as primary. You obviously need primary to take the water away but if it can't get there in the first place it will be pointless. From next week all the areas that we have drained over the past 3-years will be aerated and top-dressed. We will also be installing 'gravel bands' with our Shelton bander to new newly installed drainage. 

We are now half through our 5-year drainage project for the fairways and things have gone very well. With the 2nd hole completed, fifteen of our fairways will have been drained to an acceptable level in extreme weather. Sitting on London clay we will never have fairways like a link course, but our aim is to have a playable course for 12months of the year in all weathers. 

Below is a slideshow of the work done so far!