With a special nod to the consistency achieved across the course, Matt Aplin of Goring & Streatley Golf Club has scooped ‘Greenkeeper of the Year (under £75 green fees)’ from the 59club for the second year in a row.
Aplin believes it is no coincidence that since they’ve been applying TriCure AD from Headland Amenity on the fairways, and more recently course wide, they are achieving guaranteed consistency in presentation and turf quality like never before.
Aplin has been at the Berkshire club for over 20 years and recently oversaw the installation of a new irrigation system. He explains, “This helps to compensate for our course being laid out over free draining chalkland, however our allowance – particularly for fairways – is extremely limited.”
With its installation complete in the late summer of 2018, Aplin then had to tackle the recovery of large areas badly affected by the drought.
“Our Headland Technical Manager, Iain Richardson, recommended the wetting agent TriCure AD, applied at 5L/ha. Having previously applied competitor products at much higher rates to little effect, the club were absolutely astounded when, after just two applications of TriCure AD, the fairways had returned to full coverage! Not only does the low application rate and field longevity of up to five weeks make the product super cost effective, the level of coverage retained has meant we haven’t had to overseed our fairways for two years.”
Following the exemplary results achieved on the fairways over both the 2018 & 2019 seasons, this year Matt applied TriCure AD course wide. “We put down the first application in the second week of May on our fairways, approaches and tees, and at half rate on the greens which is helping to deliver the firm, fast greens the members crave.”
Three subsequent TriCure AD applications will be made monthly, tank mixed with Headland’s Elevate Fe liquid iron complex, when not too hot, to further enhance presentation.
“Between May 2 and June 11, we received just 4mm of rain. Thankfully, our TriCure AD programme means the course presentation tells a different tale. Within a few days of receiving some rainfall, we were green again and received some fantastic feedback from the players.”