Marram grass @TOC

[Brian_Ewen]

http://blog.standrews.org.uk/?p=927

We've added the Marram grass to give the area more of a links look and feel.


Autumn renovations
We’ve had a busy last few weeks on the Old Course with autumn renovation works taking place. We have been overseeding many areas including greens, tees, fairways  and semi-roughs to strengthen the swards of grass.

The other main task over the last week or so has been the planting of Marram grass on the 7th hole. This is the area where we removed gorse last year and reseeded the area with new grass. Now we’ve added the Marram grass to give the area more of a links look and feel.

[Bill_McBride]

OMG.  

Now you can spend a little time searching for errant drives.  At least when you hit it in the gorse you just dropped another ball and played a provisional.  

Maybe they can plant this grass left of the Principal's Nose and completely ruin number 16!

[Brent Hutto]

It takes real cojones to describe the Old Course as needing "more of a links look and feel". Kind of like saying Trump National needs another waterfall or Newcastle needs coal.

[BCrosby]

"Now we’ve added the Marram grass to give the area more of a links look and feel."

Brent nails it. If the 7th now looks more like a links hole, what was it starting to look like before you added the new grass? Or, in the alternative, if you hadn't added the new grass, what exactly did you fear the hole would become?

Or is this rather a 'fix' (scare quotes) to a self-inflicted problem - your removal of the original gorse?

Bob

[Ally Mcintosh]

I'm not sure removing the gorse was a bad idea. I suspect the hole lost some definition or looked a little bare hence the sprigging of the marram.

However, I'm not so sure there is much marram out there in that part of the course (can someone enlighten me?)... It usually inhabits the dune systems near the perimeter some more. Is it not just wall to wall fescues around that part of the links?

[Ronald Montesano]

Farewell, Old Course, we hardly knew ye'

[Bryan Izatt]

Removing the gorse certainly changed the look of the hole and made it much easier to recover from a topped drive, but although the change was visually stunning I don't think it was all that bad a move.  They've been eradicating and trying to control the gorse for more than a century.  The marram grass is an improvement over how it looked a month ago.  I don't recall marram anywhere else on the course but I wasn't looking for it.

[Neil_Crafter]

Well that looks natural.....not!
They have really lost the plot now.

[Frank Pont]

Unfortunately there is no cure for bad taste.....

[Brian_Ewen]

There seems to be a complete split among the golf clubs in Scotland at the moment.

There are those with money and have no idea what to do with it.

And there are those, with no money and have no idea what to do about it.

[Frank Pont]

The first group are the ones doing damage to their course

[Brian_Ewen]

Just wondering, has anyone seen the new 15th green at Royal Aberdeen yet ?

[Frank Pont]

Just wondering, has anyone seen the new 15th green at Royal Aberdeen yet ?

Who designed it?

[Brian_Ewen]

Who designed it?

Not sure who has been working on it.

But hearing that the green has been raised significantly and the large bunker in the front has been replaced by smaller pot bunkers.

[Jud_T]

see any resemblance?:

[BCrosby]

Bingo, though unlike the hair weave, the Marram grass will fill-in some day.

The point here is the removal of traditional vegetation and the insertion of a new kind of flashy vegetation on TOC.

The same administration that hasn't paused to make such changes in vegetation, is the same administration that hasn't paused to make structural, architectural changes to TOC.

It's all the same mind set. It's not good. It's going to get worse.

Bob

  

[Ally Mcintosh]

Bob, I'm not sure you can call marram grass a "flashy" vegetation. It is the dominant grass on most yellow / main dune ridges on British and Irish linksland.

It will soon change in appearance from its initial planted state.

But I'm not sure this location is home to much marram (being further inland) - they are older dune systems with primarily fescues I guess...

[Marty Bonnar]

There's been a LOT of dune stabilisation work using grasses on the west sands. I wouldn't be surprised if this is merely a prime example of Scottish frugality in action...

http://tinyurl.com/kycoke9

F.

[Thomas Dai]

Who designed it?

Not sure who has been working on it.
But hearing that the green has been raised significantly and the large bunker in the front has been replaced by smaller pot bunkers.

Not sure who did the work, but if you click on this RAGC website link, bizarrely it's the 16th picture (!) - you'll see new 15th green - http://www.royalaberdeengolf.com/page.aspx?pid=9998. Very different to what was there beforehand.

There is also a photo of the new 15th on Sean Arble's nice Angus & Grampian photo tour from earlier this year - see - http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,56097.50.html - to make it easier to view I would like to copy it across to here but my computer skills wouldn't let me!

All the best.

[Brian_Ewen]

There is also a photo of the new 15th on Sean Arble's nice Angus & Grampian photo tour from earlier this year -

Thanks Thomas.