Kevin Munt Golf Consultant

Fescue Golf Greens..are they Old (Course) Hat?

On the eve of the 150th anniversary of the Open Golf Championship, symbolically staged at the home of the game, there will be much talk in the greenkeeping world about the set up of the Old Course and the grass that the Championship is played on. This grass, especially in the greens, will be predominantly fescue/bent.

With Pebble Beach receiving adverse publicity at last month’s US Open, (due to critical player comments about their inconsistent Poa annua (Annual Meadow Grass) greens, the greens surfaces on the Old Course will be under the spotlight. My article on this Blog on maintaining good Poa annua greens received over 350 hits from the USA during the four days of the US Open so I assume that the press are interested in finding out more, if there is a story in it!

Creeping Bent Grass Greens

A brief history of Agrostis stolonifera golf greens in the UK & Ireland

Creeping Bent Grass (Agrostis stolonifera ) (Agrostis palustris) has a relatively short and dare it say not so smooth history in the UK. None the less it is an important history with much to be learnt from it. If my memory serves me correctly the first Creeping Bent Grass (CBG) greens sown in the UK were at Moor Allerton GC around 1971. This was the first Robert Trent Jones design in the UK and I think he specified Penncross for the greens.

How to grow great Poa annua Golf Greens

Come on lets admit it at least seventy percent of the golf greens in the UK have Poa annua (Annual Meadow Grass) (AMG) as their dominant species. Some Golf Course Managers are fighting it and trying to encourage the finer grasses to gain a greater hold, and more power to them, but the majority are making best of what they have and what they have is Poa annua!

So if you are working with Poa annua just how do you get the best out of it and how do you get it to give you good putting surfaces?

Soil the final Frontier?

Do Compost teas have a place in golf green maintenance?

There is undoubtedly a growing interest in this country in ‘growing your own’ and it is spreading to golf clubs, I am not talking about vegetables though, no I am talking about beneficial micro-organisms, The life in the soil that provides life on this planet.

I have been asked a lot lately what I think about their part in management of golf greens, so here is where I am at on the subject of bug life.

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.