Does having livestock grazing on your course produce a better playing surface ?

[Mark Pearce]

When we were building our course in St. Emilion, there was a farmer close by that had a herd of goats, and he would rent them out to the neighbors and have them graze sections of the land for them, which he controlled by putting up a temporary fence.  So, we had him try it on pieces of the course that we were just about to start working on.

What was the outcome of that trial?

[David Kelly]

I've played on many courses that have freely grazing animals and I found them for the most part charming.  However, I don't have to play them every day and deal with the droppings, ankle breaking ruts, roped off greens and weird sightings like a clearly dying horse at Yelverton, the many sheep walking around with broken or deformed legs at Southerndown, hitting an oblivious sheep with a drive  at Westward Ho!, having to tee off from the rough because a cow or sheep had had a diarrhea attack on a tee box at Brora, etc.


I do remember playing Golfclub De Hoge Kleij in The Netherlands and seeing a shepherd and a border collie escort a group of sheep onto the course to graze on a particular part of the rough on one hole that had been roped off. [size=1.375rem][/size]

[Chris Hughes]

Chris


Presumably your point is that the article highlighting the issue of compaction was mainly referring to inland clay courses while Brora is a links ? That is true but I think it also true to say that you can get compaction on links as well but maybe not the issue of "poaching" which is a new term to me.


However the discussion has moved on beyond Brora and is about grazed courses in general and if you look at the list of courses on the other thread which are grazed you will see the majority are inland course with different types of soils.


Niall

The article you linked is not relevant.       

[Niall C]

Chris


I didn't link an article but I did reference one that I think Martin linked. If that is the article in question, why is it not relevant ?


Niall

[Sean_A]

Ben

I have already said why.

Sheep help the turf

Rough control

Blurred transition lines

Sheep eaten height of fairways is another which doesn’t get mentioned. We are spending more money for shorter fairways which doesn’t do golf or the turf any favours. The sheep know .

Sheep lower maintenance costs

Multiple use of land…efficiency. I am not sure what makes golfers think they are too good or special to share the land. Grass grows, sheep eat grass, we want to eat sheep. It makes sense.

I ask better than what because I wonder if I agree, what is the cost of producing this better product and what will it cost me. It’s pretty rare that I experience truly exceptional conditions. Most of the time it’s acceptable to good. The cost to move beyond good to great to exceptional tends to rise significantly.

Ciao

Sean

I've omitted Ben's post for brevity. Firstly to answer the "better than what" question, the question is does livestock in addition to machines produce a better playing surface than purely machines ?

Niall

It depends on the quality and number of green keepers, budget etc. If you are asking me if I think Brora can be better with sheep and machines I will say yes. But I prize sheep height fairways, sheep controlled rough and blurred transition lines between rough and fairways. I don’t know why sheep would prohibit a good greens team from producing excellent turf except that certain chemicals may be prohibited. This is something I would like to know more about.

Ciao