The British and International Greenkeepers Association (BIGGA) is once again staging a day-long series of education presentations at the IOG SALTEX open space management show at Windsor.
The free-to-attend BIGGA Golf Education Day on Wednesday 5 September features some of the ‘greatest hits’ from this year’s highly successful Continue to Learn programme – presented by David Cole (Loch Lomond GC), Chris Haspell (Castle Stuart GC) and Symbio’s Paul Lowe – and will be focused on the management of winter ‘kill’, the building and grow-in of a links course, and the difference between organic matter and thatch.
David Cole, Course/Estate Manager at Loch Lomond Golf Club, will start the proceedings with ‘Managing Winter Kill in West of Scotland’. In the winter of 2009/10, theLoch Lomondgreens suffered from devastating winter kill, and this session will give an insight to the damage that occurred and the precautions taken in 2010/11 to prevent similar problems.
Then ‘From Grazing to Scottish Open Status in Five Years’ will be discussed by Chris Haspell, Course Manager at Castle Stuart Golf Club. Chris will outline his experiences of building a links golf course and its grow-in. He will also describe the journey towards the Scottish Open 2011, the event, and the rain and the recovery!
Paul Lowe, Symbio’s Technical Sales Manager, will wrap up the proceedings with ‘Organic Matter – Friend or Foe’. Measuring organic matter levels is becoming very popular, almost an industry standard procedure, and the resulting information can be invaluable to greenkeepers and groundsmen alike. However, how do we decipher between thatch and organic matter and why it is important to do so?
Paul’s presentation will discuss the various differences between problematic thatch and beneficial organic matter, the problems with working to a figure, the difference between drainage and percolation rates and how you can turn thatch to your advantage.
BIGGA CPD credits (0.5 CPD credit) are available for each seminar.
Visit www.iogsaltex.co.uk for full details.