Eddie Mills, Course Manager at Edgbaston Golf Club in Birmingham, believes his fully integrated iTurf programme has helped maintain the particularly stubborn clay-based greens to an exceptional standard.
Established in 1896, Edgbaston Golf Club’s 18-hole course was designed by H.S. Colt. It includes an ornamental lake, and plays through mature and extensive woodland with small greens and tight fairways.
Faced with major irrigation and drainage work in his first year as Course Manager, Eddie embarked on the ICL iTurf programme. Commenting on the on-going programme Eddie said: “We look at the results achieved through products applied throughout the year, and whether we think it has worked for us.
If you’ve got something that works for you then I don’t think there is any point in changing that.”
Although faced with problematic soil temperatures, Eddie believes the greens are in as good a condition as they have ever been, due in part to an early granular application of Greenmaster Pro-Lite Cold Start 11-5-5+8Fe: “Six weeks after one application of Cold Start, we then apply a Sierraform GT Spring Starter 16-0-16+Fe+Mn. In further maintaining the greens, we use SeaMax. We apply on the greens every month, which is supported by a fortnightly application of Primo Maxx. This has been essential, especially with the amount of growth.”
He adds: “We also apply Primo Maxx on the tees, approaches and surrounds, and it has really ‘thickened’ those areas up – they don’t seem to burn off as much now when the weather gets hot. We have also seen strong rooting from using Primo Maxx.”
On Edgbaston’s tees, Eddie highlighted Sierrablen 27-5-5+Fe (8-9 mths) as his stand-out performer: “We use Sierrablen on the tees in March or April. The sward is always strong because it just sits there as a base feed, and everything is ticking along throughout the playing season.”
For the past fourteen years, Eddie has worked closely with ICL’s Emma Kilby: “It is great to have someone that you can trust, and is not just here to sell you products for the sake of it. Together we develop the programme, and Emma will go out and regularly look at the course, at the products we have used, assess how things are, and there is a constant stream of information between us. I use ICL products because we are guaranteed quality, and the customer service just adds to the overall package.”
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