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.

Golf Greens - 2mm Height of Cut your USP?

After over a dozen articles on the subject, more than 200 thread posts, and in excess of 22,000 Forum page views, the issue of mowing greens as low as 2mm, on a continuous basis throughout the growing season, came to a head at the BIGGA’s BTME currently being staged in Harrogate.

Since Ealing Golf Club’s Course Manager Greg Evans went to press with this radical concept, I have not been slow in making my opinion known on this subject. So like everyone else in the 220 plus throng, who attended at 08.00 yesterday morning, I have been eagerly looking forward to this debate for sometime.

Golf is played on a green surface!

Here’s a new one for all you greenkeepers in England. What are you expecting to find once the snow cover melts on your greens? Unless you are managing a course in the highlands of Scotland it is unlikely that the majority of you have seen snow cover on your course last this long before.

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?

The Wentworth Club resurfaces the Burma Road

This is a slight exaggeration, but the reconstruction of all eighteen greens complexes on the West course (Burma Road to give it its nickname, for those who remember such days!) has caused much gossip, rumour and debate within our industry. So what is the truth, are the greens going to play better than in the recent past, is the design in keeping and of tournament quality, just what has been going on at Britain’s richest estate?

Listed Protection for Golf Courses?

In the latest edition of Greenkeeper International its Editor, Scott MacCallum, poses the question of whether golf courses in the UK should have a system of national protection, the equivalent of a Listed Building status. Good question Scott.

True Greens - Smooth talk is not cheap

They are off and trundling again. Yes Messers Windows and Bechelet of the STRI are once again promoting their Trueness meter. I reviewed this machine during Harrogate Week at the start of this year, and I hate to be smug, but I was right. It is far too expensive for the regular members golf club to purchase.

I quote from an article in, this industry’s most informed magazine, Pitchcare. “At present, it (Trueness Metre) does have its limitations because it only measures the smoothness/trueness of the greens at a single point in time and, at present, it is beyond the resources of most clubs to purchase one. Maybe in ten years it will be a standard assessment tool available to everyone”.

‘Virtually’ mowing golf courses

Well I never. The message about the differing playing qualities of traditional links golf and America’s penchant for target style golf may just be getting though.

In an article written up on Fastcompany’s web site, Craig Evans the Director of Marketing for EA Games (Electronic Arts), the creators of the Tiger Woods game franchise, commenting on their ‘Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online’ stated;

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.