Grass Clippings

The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure:—
But the least motion which they made
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.
From ‘Lines Written in Early Spring’, William Wordsworth

After a protracted grey and frosty winter, spring this year has been unsurpassed for dry and sunny conditions. In the near on eleven years I have worked at the Club, these have been the most spring-like conditions we could wish for at this time of the year. The Met Office reported this year has been the warmest spring season on record for Europe, and that sea temperatures are also the warmest on record.

The sunlight has enabled the grass to start to photosynthesize, has triggered tree species to start to unfurl their leaves and, with the movement in the soil temperatures we experienced a sudden ‘green up’ towards the end of March.

Grass growth, as measured by the amount of clipping we are taking off the greens and lawns is still very modest. While the dry conditions have meant the greens and lawns have firmed exceptionally quickly this season and, with a little encouragement of hand mowing and rolling, produced good pace and trueness for the start of the season.

We have begun to use the overhead irrigation earlier in the season than I can recall and are being prudent with fertilizer to encourage growth, but not to produce a sudden growth flourish.

The cold easterly winds have kept daytime temperatures on the nippy side and led to the occasional surprise early-morning frost. Easter week seems a little more changeable and the long-range forecast is typically vague, possibly showers on their way although more settled weather following.

Coastal erosion golf course threat

As previously written about here, coastal erosion of the links in Scotland is becoming a threat to many courses on either side of the country. So much so that the home of golf, the Old Course at St Andrews has had to undertake a progressive programme of costal management to save the links from being eroded away.

Neil Coulson, chief executive of St Andrew’s Links Trust stated in the Scotsman: ‘we take our responsibility as the custodians of not just the Old Course, but our other world-famous courses extremely seriously’. More than 28,500 tonnes of sand are being used to rebuild dunes on the St Andrew’s Links Trust courses.

Erosion of dune systems is a systemic result of storm surges and more frequent violent weather systems attributed to climate change. The links or duneland systems have historically created the natural defence against storm damage. The greatest protection for dunes is native vegetation such as Marram Grass which is a hardy coastal grass that plays a crucial role in stabilizing sand dunes by binding the sand with its fibrous, matted roots. It allows other plants to colonize and create a diverse matrix of vegetation across the shoreline, helping to bind the dunes together, through the heaviest of storms.

The deployment of Hebridean sheep aims to manage and sustain duneland systems by supporting coastal biodiversity. Not all links courses are so lucky in Scotland and the rest of the British Isles. Some areas have already been highlighted to allow nature to take its course, as the Environmental Department has had to identify what areas of the coastline will need to be sacrificed, for the sake of resources management.