Kevin Munt Golf Consultant

Should you play golf in the frost?

With the weather forecasters looking eagerly to the East at the moment (they love a bit of real weather), it looks like the cold winter (for England anyway) is set to continue, so I though I would drop in a few notes on golf and frost.

In an ideal world the simple rule would be, if it is frozen don’t play on it. The problem is greenkeeping, a job that could possibly be the best job in the world, is spoiled by golfers so simple rules do not apply. Just take a look at the set of rules that are needed to play the game!

Weather to spray or not to spray that is the question

BTME Harrogate Product Review

I passed Weather for Golf’s stand with a casual glance over my shoulder, “are you interested in the weather sir” asked the booth’s occupier. “I’m British aren’t I “ I joked. “Then you will be” came the retort.

“I don’t have much time for your lot as you let me down in 1987 during the Suntory World Match-play at The Wentworth Club” Me bare a grudge, no. I though I would make this a tough sell. “I think you will find that was the BBC’s fault sir”. I was confused, so I got a lesson in weather forecasting for golf courses and the role of the Met Office. 

How green is your mower?

BTME Harrogate Product Review

Metallic orange is the new green, take a close look at it (left click on the pic). It doesn’t have a name other than Actioneco, which I think is the company name and not the machine name, a marketing faux pas if ever I saw one. There is however no denying that it makes you look, I am sure many of the visitors to BTME said what **** is that.

STRI tools for Putting Green surface trueness and firmness

BTME Harrogate Product Review

How often have you said that your greens were both firm and true? How do you quantify these statements, what are the scientific measurements that you use to back up these statements?

Well of course you don’t have any. You know because you have spent the past number of years gaining the art, (knowledge and skills) to provide your club with these key elements that make good greens into great surfaces.

The R&A’s new Benchmarking service

BTME Harrogate product review

So what is the R&A’s benchmarking service? Basically it is a simple way of logging a Course Manager’s key
operational data for his club so that they can then monitor resource inputs
such as chemicals, irrigation, machinery usage and labour for their maintained surfaces.

This data is then processed and a ‘benchmark’ graph line is produced that can be used to judge year-on-year trends. This benchmark can also be judged, anonymously, against national average figures for all golf clubs registered with the system.

Harrogate Golf Greenkeepers Show BTME

Comment from Harrogate week – BTME, Clubhouse & Continue to Learn Latest news update from the BIGGA’s annual turfest Harrogate Week. I was planning to update my blog from the show each day, but as usual long discussions on golf course maintenance issues have got in the way. Of course all this talk makes you hoarse so lubrication of the vocal chords is also vital and time consuming!

First impressions, well it seemed to be quieter than usual on Tuesday and heaving yesterday. As expected all the talk is of the economic downturn and how incomes, budgets and jobs are going to be affected. There are worrying stories from Ireland of clubs shutting down and others putting greenstaff on a three-day week. Many clubs in the UK are experiencing membership non-renewals with reports of 40 to 50 memberships being lost. I have no doubt that once the spring renewal period is over there will be even higher losses than this.

Finding the right golf course consultant

What we need is a golf course consultant

I wonder how many times these words have been uttered in golf club ‘spike bars’ up and down the country over the last thirty years. It must be in the thousands by now. They many not have been as specific as that but along the same theme. “What we need is a new greenkeeper” (will be number one), a second opinion, someone who knows what they are doing, a qualified expert, a consultant, will be others.

Prepare your ground to get what you need

GET WHAT YOU WANT, no sorry ‘NEED’

The Rolling Stones song ‘You Can't Always Get What You Want’ contains the lyric ‘but if you try sometimes, well you just might find, you get what you need’

The message contained in this lyric is so important, get what you need not what you want!

Golf Course Manager or Head Greenkeeper

What’s in a name and does it matter?

In 1981 I was having a few pints with an opponent after a game of rugby and he asked me what I did for a living.

I said that I was a Greenkeeper, “oh one of those guys who cuts grass on a golf course” he retorted. (I was in fact the Course Manager at Sudbury Golf Club).

After mumbling something about it being a bit more involved than that, I asked him what he did. ”I’m a, Transparent Partition Maintenance Engineer”. After working it out “Oh one of those guys who cleans windows” I retorted.