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Jerry Kluger

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I have had the opportunity to play some very well respected courses with significant areas of heather throughout them and I wanted to try and understand how it is maintained and why a designer would plant heather in a course.  My experience has been that it can be extremely difficult to play out of heather and sometimes it can be hard to even find your ball.  What type of maintenance is required and is it possible to maintain it in such a way that it doesn't entirely cover an area? I guess from my question you can tell that I have had a tough time with it and I just want to understand why a course would add heather when there are so many other options. 

Niall C

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Can we discuss heather and its benefits and maintenance.
« Reply #1 on: May 01, 2024, 03:48:23 PM »
Jerry


Heather is notoriously difficult to grow from scratch and so you are not likely to find it anywhere that it isn't naturally found. Generally you'll find it on links and heathland courses. As to why you'd want it on a course, well apart from being native and also attractive, it adds a different texture. It can also be variable meaning that you don't know what kind of lie you might get. Some might see that as being unfair but that is the nature of these type of courses.


That said, I have been a member at a club where for many years they had a rule that you were allowed to take a trolley into the rough as they wanted to encourage the heather. A number of years later they eventually had to start going over it with a mower because it had grown so well !


Niall 

Adam Lawrence

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Can we discuss heather and its benefits and maintenance.
« Reply #2 on: May 01, 2024, 04:33:42 PM »
Niall's right that the vast majority of courses that have heather have it because it is native to the site. There are a few where it is been successfully planted from scratch, most notably Queenwood (whose heather was sourced from Hankley Common).


The key reason, imo, for wanting heather on courses located on appropriate sites is that it is a scarce and valuable ecosystem. If we confine ourselves to considering the lowland heath south and west of London, this is a landscape that has declined massively in the last two centuries because of the development of the region. Heath was a landscape that was created by the clearance of the original, poor quality, woodland for grazing thousands of years ago. When it is not grazed or in some other way maintained, the poor quality woodland, first birch and then pine, eventually repopulates the area. This is why so many 'heathland' courses are now more akin to poor quality woodland.


In pure golfing terms, I personally value heather primarily for its aesthetic appeal. As Niall says, it gives unmatched texture to a course, and when in bloom in late summer, nothing is so beautiful. It is unarguably very difficult to play out of, and most heathland courses have been at some time a little ambivalent about it for this reason. Fortunately (imo) the pendulum has swung back in the plant's favour of late.
Adam Lawrence

Editor, Golf Course Architecture
www.golfcoursearchitecture.net

Principal, Oxford Golf Consulting
www.oxfordgolfconsulting.com

Author, 'More Enduring Than Brass: a biography of Harry Colt' (forthcoming).

Short words are best, and the old words, when short, are the best of all.

Jerry Kluger

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Can we discuss heather and its benefits and maintenance.
« Reply #3 on: May 01, 2024, 05:32:27 PM »
Adam: What prompted my interest was your interview with Steve Marnoch in Golf Course Architecture where he is reintroducing heather in his Matlock project.  Looking at the photos I see heather being installed around bunkers which to me would make it  preferable to be in the bunker as opposed to heather where at times you might not be able to even get the ball out of the heather. I also question if it really looks natural.

Tim Martin

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Can we discuss heather and its benefits and maintenance.
« Reply #4 on: May 02, 2024, 09:06:08 AM »

In pure golfing terms, I personally value heather primarily for its aesthetic appeal. As Niall says, it gives unmatched texture to a course, and when in bloom in late summer, nothing is so beautiful. It is unarguably very difficult to play out of, and most heathland courses have been at some time a little ambivalent about it for this reason. Fortunately (imo) the pendulum has swung back in the plant's favour of late.


It’s great for its “aesthetic appeal” and the way it frames the playing corridors. That said it’s terrible to play from and serves to frustrate and slow the game down.


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