Maintaining premium fairways on the rugged west coast of Wales has always been a challenge at Cardigan Golf Club. With shallow soils of only 3 to 4 inches over bedrock, achieving strong turf establishment has tested the greenkeeping team for many years – particularly in 2025, when little if any rainfall fell for many months.
“Traditionally, our shallow, sandy soils made it difficult for anything to get a good hold,” course manager Stuart Adams explains. “We went back to basics and looked at what was native on the fairways and found that hard and sheeps fescue seemed to cope with our links condition.”
For the last few years he’s been sowing a bespoke Cardigan mix from DLF containing 25 to 30% hard fescue, before switching to J Sustain Fairway with 40% hard fescue after Johnsons launched it in early 2025.
Impressive results
Despite a prolonged dry spell, the first overseeding brought impressive results. “As soon as the rain returned in September [Cardigan has no fairway irrigation] the strike rate was simply incredible,” he told DLF regional technical manager Ian Barnett at the time. “It was the best establishment I’ve seen from any mix in the last six or seven years.”
The high-performance, fine-turf Sustain Fairway formulation, which includes 15% sheeps fescue, slender creeping, strong creeping and chewing fescue cultivars, is said to withstand the environmental challenges impacting links and heathland courses, “delivering a natural tolerance to a broad range of turf stresses and requiring less nutrient, water and chemical inputs to thrive”, DLF states.
“It’s tough, resilient and perfect for coping with hotter, drier summers and wetter winters, which is critical for futureproofing our course,” Stuart adds. “Also, we used to suffer with leatherjackets and pecking damage but haven’t seen that this year. It could be that the toughness of the hard fescue roots is making it harder for pests to get through.”
www.johnsonssportseed.co.uk