Nature takes its course
Ursula Buchan
Ididn't used to be very keen on golf. It was less that it spoiled a good walk as spoiled a good landscape, in my opinion. I couldn't be doing with all those shaved and lavishly watered fairways, those sandy bunkers where sand never oughta been, that faux-rough 'rough' and all that wormkilling to produce the perfect, unpocked 'green'. I disliked the fact that a natural, or semi-natural, landscape was managed so artificially that it had lost both its naturalness and the wildlife that went with it.
If I wanted my prejudices massaged, however, I should never have visited Hunstanton Golf Course, a century-old links course in west Norfolk, with a fine Edwardian clubhouse, which recently played host to the premier amateur competition, the Brabazon. Definitely Betjeman country — `The very turf rejoiced to see/that quite unprecedented three', Yet its traditional appearance is misleading. Something, indeed rather a lot, has changed since I was taught Turf as a student in the late Seventies.
Chlordane, which is what was used to frazzle worms to a matchstick', as Jimmy Read, the course manager, puts it, is no longer on the market and, in any event, the fertiliser regime has changed so much that worms are no longer a problem, or certainly not enough to need something done about them. Up to ten years ago, the greenkeepers at Hunstanton, as at many other courses, depended heavily on lime and nitrogenous fertilisers to produce the turf they wanted, almost as if the golf course were wheatfield. When that regime was abandoned, the extremely sandy soil became increasingly acidic, which does not suit worms. More recently, fine grasses — bents in particular — have been `oversown' (a term which refers to the sowing of seeds in shallow slit trenches) into the turf of greens and fairways to compete with the meadow and rye grasses, which used to be the sole constituents of the greens. Once they do that successfully, fescues, which are more delicate, can also be introduced. Bents and fescues are the natural grasses of sandy turf, drought-tolerant, capable of holding their colour well but also greening up 'before your very eyes' once a drought is over. What is more, they improve the run of the ball. It will take five to ten years, says Jimmy Read, to change the grass constituency to about equal parts meadowgrass, bent and fescue, as exists now at St Andrews, for example. Fertiliser applica
tions have dropped substantially and will drop further; only the greens and tees are watered these days, and weeds are removed either by hand or by spot weedkilling only.
The most remarkable changes concern the mowing regime, however, The 'rough' is now left strictly alone but, because the native parasitic plant yellow rattle grows in it naturally, it is no jungle of coarse grasses, but instead a springy turf of fine grasses and unusual wild flowers; some of these, like sea holly and sea bindweed, are seaside endemics of considerable fascination. In places, this turf supports as many as 40 species a square metre. What is more, since some previously mown areas have been left uncut, purple orchids have started to pop up in several places on the side of the fairways; orchids which decades of low mowing have suppressed but never quite killed. As for birds, Hunstanton now has nightingales, larks, lapwings and other ground-nesting birds, partridges and barn owls, as well as a kingfisher on the stream between the first and second holes.
Policy is decided by Jimmy Read, who has a staff of seven, since golf courses are still very labour-intensive. (The greens are mown three times a week in winter and daily in summer, and there is spiking, scarifying and top-dressing to do.) He works in concert with Charles Coker, a club member and chairman of the Greens Committee, whose enthusiasm for the ecology of the site matches Jimmy's. Advice has been sought from English Nature and a professional ecology report from the Sports Turf Research Institute (STRI) commissioned; its remit has been to advise on the increasing problem of encroachment by scrub, especially seabuckthorn.
Here there is a tricky problem. This August, at a presentation, Charles Coker, together with Bob Taylor of STRI, has to persuade the 550 members that the scrub should in many places be removed, as it shelters corvids, like magpies, which prey on ground-nesting birds, and compromises the 'fixed dune grassland' ecology. Some scrub should remain as shelter for the nightingales, and as 'stepping stones' for small birds and mammals, but it is recommended that 10-15 per cent at least be grubbed. Golfers who never knew the course in the days before the scrub invaded may find this hard to accept. But Charles Coker is hoping he can carry the membership with him by a gradual, staged approach over five years. The irony is not lost on me that English Nature have told him that the best protectors of fixed dune grassland are now the custodians of links golf courses. Anyone for a round?
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