[Philip Gawith]

The Open finished just over ten weeks ago. I thought this sample of pictures then and now would be an interesting reminder of how quickly things can change - particularly in the light of the various people saying the course had obviously died etc.

None of these pictures, of course, can capture the fact that the redoubtable GCA combatants battled against typical Hoylake elements, including some pretty brisk wind, whereas the pampered pro's never faced more than a gentle zephyr.

[Kevin Pallier]

Philip

Love the contrast in photos...therein lies the beauty of links golf....they offer soooooo much variety

Many thanks
KP

[Mark_Guiniven]

Great pics Philip. What are the grasses we're looking at?

Thought about this at the Open... is that kind of bunkering now mandatory on all links courses under some kind of EU regulation?

Do the bunkers at the new Archerfield course look like that?

[Tiger_Bernhardt]

Phillip, How much irrigation is any exists outside the greens and tees?

[Mike_Cirba]

And people say Hoylake isn't beautiful??!!?  

Love it in both brown AND green.  

[Philip Gawith]

Hux - I do not know the answer to your question re grasses. Maybe newest member Alastair Beggs - welcome to him! - can answer the question in his debut post as he is both Hoylake member and agronomist.

Maybe Alastair can also answer Tiger's question re sprinklers. I ought to know but I don't.

[Mark_F]

Great pics Philip,

Which condition do you prefer playing it in?

[Tom_Doak]

Philip:

How did you choose clubs for your approach shots?  Were there yardages on sprinkler heads?  If so, they are also there for fairway irrigation ... even if they are used more often for yardage markers.

[RJ_Daley]

And, I'll bet that those greened-up fairways still play more firm and fast than the average US tour stop courses...

[RJ_Daley]

Tom D., aren't you back playing in that Dunhill Cup pro-am this year?  I was hoping to see posts from you about it.

[Bill_McBride]

There were indeed lots of fairway sprinkler heads, most marked with distance to the front of the big greens.  The resulting information could have been more confusing than helpful!

What a golf course, wonderful links turf and obviously lots of wind.  The flat holes in the center in front of the clubhouse are very scary with the cop surrounding the practice area marking out of bounds that is always close to the line of play.

The revetted bunkers are deep and also scary, and are almost always found in groups of two, three or four in a row.  

There will be extensive discussion of the difference between the greens replaced at Hoylake by Donald Steel.  Stand by!

[Philip Gawith]

Tom - Bill has given you the answer. I knew there were lots of sprinkler-heads/yardage markers but the reason i was a little unsure because I don't think I can ever recall seeing a sprinkler on at Hoylake, so I was a bit unsure about their purpose! And the fact that they clearly did not water the fairways despite extreme weather in July only added to my uncertainty!

Mark - I did not actually play the course in July so can't give you a complete answer. For someone of my skillset - long-hitter, dodgy short game - I am sure July was harder than October! But I would have enjoyed the variety. The punchbowl hole, for example, is driveable, possibly even from back tees, when the ball is running, but when we played it and the wind was out of the north, even your best drive could not clear the big hill in the middle of the fairway.

[Alistair Beggs]

As a brand new member this is the ideal time for me to reply as you are all talking about a course I know a little about.

Firstly I should say that it was a real privilege to have like minded souls playing at Hoylake this week.  I hope those of you that came enjoyed the experience.

Philip - looking at those pictures from July it is hard to believe it is the same course!  Thanks for your kind message too.

Hux - on grasses we have a very single minded approach to agronomy on links courses in the UK.  This is not only true of Hoylake but of all the host venues for The Open.  It revolves around the promotion of fescues which we believe gives us the best possible year round playing characteristics along with the fewest agronomic problems.  The greens at Hoylake are a mix of fescues with browntop bents and some yorkshire fog and poa annua.  We actively discourage the latter.  Tees are similar as are fairways and roughs.  The links really is a genuine extension of the dune scape around it and we look to encourage the grasses that naturally want to be there.  Better that than force a false equilibrium at great expense.

Tiger - good name!!  Irrigation covers greens, tees, fairways and some semi rough.  We don't use any of it very much merely to keep the turf alive and no more.  Fescues just hate water so we keep inputs to a minimum.  Brown is great as far as I am concerned.  We tried hard to get rid of everything green for The Open!  You may be interested to know that we get about 30 inches of rain per annum compared to the drier east coast where rainfall levels may get as low as 20 - 23 inches.  The UK is not as wet as many of you think!

Tom - we have yardages to green fronts on our sprinklers just to speed up play.

Bill - I'm looking forward to seeing what is said about the newer greens by those who played.

[Craig Disher]

Alistair,
Glad to see you here - I think your post count will skyrocket if you answer even half the questions that you'll be asked. Here's one.

The turf at Wallesey was much thinner than that at Hoylake. One thought in our group was that the turf was only just recovering after the dry, hot summer. Hoylake's turf was better because the fairway irrigation didn't let it deteriorate as much. Is this close to the mark? or are the soil and drainage very different?

[RJ_Daley]

Alistair, welcome.  We look forward to hearing your persective of things on the GCA subject and traditional links turf maintenance programs.

With a sward of predominant fescues and browntop bents, do they require much overseeding in places of high stress?  Or do they just fill in or promulgate back themselves.  Are they aerated in FWs by pulling plug cores and dragging to crush the cores, or just punching or slicing them solid?

This interests me because the mix sounds much like some of the areas seeded at BallyNeal, which I visited recently.  Yet, that is in a far different climate.

[Steve Okula]

 The greens at Hoylake are a mix of fescues with browntop bents and some yorkshire fog and poa annua.  We actively discourage the latter.  

Alistair,

Welcome to the group. This is the first mention of Yorkshire fog (Holcus lanata) that I have seen on this DG. You say you try to discourage the Poa annua, but does that imply you're not worried about the Holcus? It seems to me that Yorkshire fog is much more disruptive to the playing surface than Poa.

Is there anything to be done about Holcus other than digging it out by hand or re-surfacing?

[Alistair Beggs]

Craig

Good to hear from you.  It's always difficult to compare and contrast turf issues particularly when we don't have the full facts.  The turf at Hoylake has always been good and strong with a high fescue content especially in the fairways.  It may simply be down to irrigation but I don't really know.  It may be that Wallasey gets a bit more play.  I don't know that for a fact either.

RJ

Yes all our links require active overseeding and we do a lot of it.  We aerate too particularly with vertidrain tools and with slitters (you call them slicers).

I've seen some pictures of Ballyneal - it looks great. I'd be interested to hear how they get on managing fescues in that climate.

Steve

Yorkshire fog does not like heavy wear.  It tends to colonise green edges and rears where pin use is less intense.  One of the old techniques used to manage it involves placing pins near colonies of it  - it works.  An added bonus is that the wide hairy leaves make it vulnerable to selective herbicides applied for other purposes.  Between these methods we can keep it under control.  That aside its not a bad grass.  It looks worse than it is and it sits through winter and rarely gets diseased.

We rarely dig it out - with appropriate management it can be controlled.  RLGC had a big push on reduction before The Open.

Alistair

[Bill_McBride]

Alistair, six of us were at Beau Desert Friday (all day in the rain unfortunately!   ) where the professional mentioned "the R&A agronomist" had been there to look over the course.  We asked if it was you and yes it was, you were very helpful.    They do have great turf there considering all the trees and some drainage issues.  And the greens - great stuff, lots of contours.  If those are the original Herbert Fowler greens, there was obviously a lot of post-Fowler flattening at Delamere Forest where the greens are much more bland and featureless in most cases.

My quick take on the Steel greens at #1 and #2 -- they sit higher than the older greens and therefore the bunker tops do not project above the greens so much as they do at the older greens, with the slopes down to the green surface which most all the greens -- including Steel's #5 -- have to such advantage.  The greens at #1 and #2 just didn't seem of the same style as all the other sixteen.  They aren't bad greens, just somewhat different in my opinion.

What a great course Hoylake is, in whatever conditions it's played.  We enjoyed meeting you there.

[ward peyronnin]

Alistair,

Glad you have joined the site not least because I've wanted to ay how much I enjoyed visiting with you last Tuesday.

Have you ever made a statement such as the one regarding watering practices at Hoylake to your US counterparts and if so how did they react?
Obviously from the conditioning we encountered what happened at RLGC works!

Best Regards
Warp Peyronnin

[Alistair Beggs]

Ward, Bill, Sean

Beau Desert - wasn't me.  Not been there!

I'll come back to you on the other stuff at the end of the week.  Got to go and do some work now!

Alistair

[Bill_McBride]

Alistair, could it have been Delamere Forest?  It's all running together in my mind!  Wherever it was, they named you by name!

[PThomas]

And people say Hoylake isn't beautiful??!!?  

Love it in both brown AND green.  

Mike said it well

thanks for the pics!

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