The heavy rain which followed the late summer dry spell has helped to highlight compacted ground and potential drainage problems on golf courses throughout the UK.
It has meant a bust time for us as we travel extensively throughout the United Kingdom as turf managers call in our services.
Back in the days before irrigation became commonplace on golf course, clay was used to provide an impermeable barrier to retain water for the grass roots.
Copt Heath golf course near Birmingham and Basingstoke golf course, who both have these clay lined 'push-up' type greens. Terrain Aeration were called in to treat the greens to punch through this layer and allow free passage of both water and air.
Once we injected air through this layer, the newly created fractures and fissures were injected with dried, milled seaweed (which swells when wet) to keep them open.
The initial positive result is that the greens enjoy better drainage with golf balls now bouncing rather than landing with a thump and a splurge and sticking half way into the turf.
Kevin Clue, Head Greenkeeper of Petersfield golf course in Hampshire told us that the compaction on his tees was caused by heavy machinery used when the parkland course was constructed in 1995.
Kevin said that they had a compaction problem about 2ft down and previously, when the weather got bad, the 14th and the 8th greens had to be put out of play. After we treated the greens, Kevin said that he noticed an improvement as soon as the following day.
We are going to go back and treat the remaining greens as soon as we can.
We treated Kirkcaldy golf course's greens in Eastern Scotland in October while the weather held.
The course, which is over 100 years old had suffered with surface water in autumn over many years. We used Scamper to punch through rock and then the clay layer.
We understand that despite heavy rain, apart from the odd day, the greens have remained open.
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