Reading this title you might be starting to imagine the the name 'Royal Muswell Hill Golf Club' or thinking I might run into William and Kate playing the back nine one evening!
Unfortunately this is not the case but we have had a visit from one of the Royal household staff. One of the horticulturists from Buckingham Palace came down to the club to to spend the day with us and see some of the data collection and theories behind modern greenkeeping practices after reading about the club in some of the turf magazines.
Above is a picture of Joe testing the greens with a soil compaction metre and the infiltration metre.
After the first contact (which at first I thought was a friend joking around with me) was made we arranged for Joe Vardy one of their horticulturists to visit for the day to exchange ideas from our industry to what they do in Buckingham Palace with regard to soil conductivity, tests on alpine plants or fertiliser suspension tests. Joe came with an immense knowledge of plants and their back rounds. He had previous experience working at RHS Wisley.
I really enjoyed sharing ideas with Joe on compaction tests, green speed, smoothness, infiltration rates, heights of cut, prism gages, moisture tests, E.T rates (evaporation), soil analysis and soil cores. All of these could be transferred over to lawn maintenance practices at Buckingham Palace and would give them the same guidance it gives us. These process help us shape playability, irrigation rates, fertiliser applications, turf smoothness and density.
I am very much hoping to do an away leg and visit Buckingham Palace ;-)
The second part of this blog is dedicated to our members. Some of the ladies section (and Men's) volunteered to help with the long task of getting some of the debris off the course following the high winds and wet winter we experienced. This was a great help and allowed them to see the size of the task we had in those first few weeks as the spring came in. I would like to thank them for there help.
Next up was the Divot trophy, this was held on Good Friday. The turnout of the membership to play in this year on year has been fantastic. Again a full field of players went out and divoted (added seed and soil) to the divots on the fairways. We placed over 225 buckets along the middle of the holes with each team of four, divotting their fairway for 45 mins before playing a Texas scramble (including all the greenkeepers). A great day was had by all with a lovely meal in the clubhouse and a Jazz band playing after.
So, we might not have official royalty at the club but these members who give up their time to help the club and be involved are Royal members and I would like to say thank you all for your help from the club.
Matt
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