- 6 minutes ago
Golf Monthly's Dan Parker gets a very early alarm call to join Jake Field and his team at Edgbaston Golf Club to see what it's like to be a greenkeeper! Dan gets properly hands on for a day, trying out various jobs including changing holes, bunker raking, measuring green speed, mowing approaches and ironing greens to see what it's like but also discover how techniques have become far more modern to ensure courses can be maintained to a high standard.
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SportsTranscript
00:08right good morning it is ten past five in the morning we're here at edgbaston golf club in
00:13the middle of birmingham today i'm going to be experiencing a day in the life as a green keeper
00:17hence that early start i'm going to get hands on with some of the stuff they do finding out
00:21what they do why they do it asking all the questions i'm sure you and i have about
00:26their day-to-day lives um it's early and that's fine i'm excited to get stuck in uh this is
00:31a good
00:31start
00:44right good morning i'm here with jake course manager jake nice to meet you thank you for having us
00:49pal um bright and early just seen the uh staff heading out to course we're going to go now in
00:54a minute follow them around season their stuff doing some of our own stuff what am i going to
00:58be getting up to today so don i think we're going to have you uh repositioning a pin this morning
01:02exciting that's what i mainly came here for going to be ironing a green yes um mowing an approach
01:08and we're going to get you to do some bunker work for us which will hopefully get you sweating a
01:12little bit that's it i'm here to labor today but i'm here to find out a lot about how green
01:15keeping
01:16works you're going to be here to tell us you know the whys and the whats of what you guys
01:19do as well
01:23monitor the course and keep it in perfect condition it is now 10 to 6 which is fine it's a
01:28great time
01:29of day to start uh we're going to let it get a little bit lighter i think and then head
01:33out
01:33into the course awesome let's do it left out how do i get like that way so i turn to
01:38the left so that
01:39yeah and that will just send me yeah in that general direction yeah if you hit me got you yeah
01:45got you
02:08it's a real field thing isn't it to get the idea of it i mean you know i've had new
02:13guys it takes
02:13some quite a while to get to get used to it yeah so especially this time of year dan we're
02:20using it
02:20sort of alternative days so say we cut on a monday we'll roll on a tuesday and then work our
02:24way
02:24through the week like that just to help mitigate some turf stress this time of year during competition
02:29busy schedule times we generally cut and roll to help promote speed and ball roll it's a great bit
02:35of kit you know especially in the winter months when we're not really cutting so much but we still want
02:39to present a surface with the members and the visitors um yeah it's it's great for that time
02:44and so you'll use that on all the greens today instead of coating so you'll cut tomorrow
02:47yeah absolutely and what will you have these guys rolling at today we'll do a bit of stint reading
02:52later i think but what have we got them at today so day to day i'd say they're probably around
02:55nine
02:56nine and a half yeah i'm probably playing that safe just in case they're a little bit slower
02:59and our members see some of this on that day yeah right jake my freshly ironed green yep now time
03:07for a stint measurement and you'll do this every morning uh once the greens have been ironed or cut
03:12depending on the day yeah absolutely so this just gives us an idea where we're at 10's ideal perfect
03:16for our day-to-day membership nine's a little bit slow but we have just raised the height of cut
03:21slightly on the greens um so i expect it to be around probably nine nine and a half um so
03:26what i've done
03:26is i've laid a marker down with a t-peg um i'm going to throw roll three balls this way
03:31yeah
03:32we'll take the middle golf ball out of the three we'll measure with the measuring tape from this
03:38point to there and then we'll repeat the process coming back taking average of those two readings
03:43beautiful right let's do it let's see what we're on that today
03:48so this device you just sort of let that rise yeah so you just sit sit a ball in the
03:52groove on the bar
03:54and then there it is just let it roll away like that so what are we at so we are
04:00at 10.3 in this
04:02direction so we'll head back up now yeah should we leave that marker there yeah
04:10see we're a touch uphill here aren't we yeah slightly just why you do two readings yeah it's uh just
04:17so
04:17we can take an average there it goes uh can you get a read there that is that's quite strange
04:30there we
04:30go eight eight on the dots so there if we were 10.3 so we're around what 9.1 9
04:38.1 in the middle there
04:39kind of what i thought pretty much what you said there okay jake as i said it's time to replace
04:47a hole i think this is the most this is the most exciting part uh i really enjoy this job
04:52setting
04:52up the golf course for the day uh you know we've put the club have actually posted some stuff on
04:56social media before and the amount of comments people love this stuff interaction we've got yeah
05:00so golfers seem to find it really satisfying so we're going to give the people what they want
05:03today but before we actually get into the practical side of it talk me through how you figure out
05:08where a pin's going to be on a green are there a certain amount of possible options where can they
05:13go where can't they go let us know yeah so we always sit there sort of six feet in from
05:17the edge
05:17of a green okay day to day we try and go for six pins at the front six pins and
05:21six pins in the
05:22middle and six pins at the back we keep things relatively easy if you're day-to-day golf you know
05:27how many options would you say there are on a green of this size uh so i'd say around here
05:31we've we've
05:31got played this is a decent size green so we've probably got anywhere but serene sort of 15 and 20
05:36positions on here right then so we're back right today here's the here's the equipment talk me
05:42through it and i'm gonna give us a bash so this blackboard here you can see that's the cutting
05:46board um this is just to stop sort of footprints and things like that the greens are pretty firm
05:51at the minute so you shouldn't have any issues anywhere it'll also help stop when you come to
05:55lift the plug out it'll stop that hole crowning a little bit uh we paint our holes daily oh good
06:02yeah just a nice little touch for the members that they like do you want to crack on let's just
06:06do
06:07it yeah let's have a go let's let's get it done so if you come and pick this up dan
06:10uh then you put
06:12it in in that gap there stand on there yeah uh you see this pin here i do so pull
06:17that out and then
06:19slightly turn it sort of roll it around and it should catch on a notch there like that oh my
06:25god yeah
06:25got you and then if you lift up and like use a hammer motion
06:31gee whiz yeah you keep going and you'll feel it when it hits the board
06:35i should go to the gym
06:38hello luna
06:40and that that's perfect that's in there okay and then now go back to that pin
06:45yeah uh put it back into the other back in notch there uh then if you spin the handles round
06:53keep going oh i can feel that give it maybe two or three
07:01and then just lift her up now so lift her up towards your chin
07:06and then pop it on the side of the board beautiful perfect hey there we go that was quite satisfying
07:12wasn't it so what have i got in here now just so you've got yeah so you've got the plug
07:15the uh where
07:16the new cup's going to go and then we'll go and replace that now into the into the old hole
07:20yeah
07:21there you go
07:22there it is awesome so i've got the hole there and then it just take it to the side of
07:26the grain down
07:26and give it a tap with the uh with the metal just to clear any mud off it
07:33and then if you want to put that in there
07:34oh i see so this is filling that back up there so just literally as i see it
07:39yeah it's special
07:42so i pop it back in give it a bit of a wiggle round in sort of a circular motion
07:47give it a tap there you go um and then if you pull this lever out so push
07:55and then it should pop out there you go
07:57got it and then if you wind it round there's a
07:59that way yeah no other way
08:00no toward me that's it
08:02right there you go
08:08keep going that's perfect and then uh roll that keep going and tuck it back behind
08:15perfect so if you have a look here yeah you might see some little straggly bits of turf
08:19oh wow yeah so if you just give them a clip
08:26so clear the hole and then you swap those yeah if you put the hole in
08:32just leave it sort of halfway proud
08:35about there yeah and then we have a depth setter here so let's make sure we get the correct depth
08:39every time oh okay so this is an this should set an inch yeah so if you pop that on
08:44top of the cup
08:45yeah stamp it down just put your foot on it it should slide in
08:49yeah and then give it a spin a couple of times
08:52and then just lift it off perfect hey beautiful easy buddy so final touches then jake yeah that's
08:59the paint yeah that's that word so this is uh some clubs do this some clubs don't
09:04like i said earlier you know we find it's a a nice touch for the members i think so
09:08i think you always notice when a hole's painted you go oh that's a that's a classy club yeah
09:12so if you take this so this this stops the paint getting into the actual hole cup
09:17yeah and keeps it from sort of building up around we're just painting this soiled edge here it'll
09:22sit on top of the cup that will like that there yeah and then the the painting board here has
09:28a
09:28has a lip on it as well to sort of stop yeah anything coming on this area of the turf
09:33around
09:34around the edge yeah so i'll place that down for you there dan
09:40and then we'll get you some paint yeah and the the best thing to remember when you're painting holes
09:45is little is more so if you put loads on it tends to crack and peel away so a light
09:51layer seems to work
09:52a lot better okay right now i see
10:04can have a look at that i don't i don't overcook it that's perfect that's great easy money well
10:10it's quite a process actually isn't it yeah it'd be an easy in and out but um
10:13this is an important job very satisfying job i would agree yeah uh thank you guys yeah no worries
10:24so for cutting you go into the tortoise i like how they've got the animals that show the speed
10:30yeah it's like they knew i was coming uh so your revs need to be on full okay so when
10:34you come to cut
10:36your first line get a little bit on just be front to you cutting units yeah and then tap that
10:42down
10:42and your units will drop then and then when you get to the end pull it back towards you okay
10:48yeah so we'll i think we'll start from the tea and work up that sounds good uh so our team
10:52surfaces
10:53are cut eight millimeters in the in the summer uh we moat those three times a week wow so it's
10:58that monday wednesday friday yes approaches are the same so they're monday wednesday friday and they're
11:03also cut at eight millimeters keep going a bit at fairways they're cut at 13 millimeters three times
11:09a week uh semi rough is at 22 millimeters and that is cut twice a week our rough is at
11:17two and a half
11:18inches which is where we're stood now quite nice to juice it this morning yeah that wet winter punitive
11:23the golfers have had a bit of a moan this year but the weather's sort of taking it out of
11:27our control
11:29greens are currently sitting at three and a half mil yeah and so is mowing the most sort of
11:33labor-intensive part of a green keeper's life it's the you have to sort of keep on top of the
11:37most
11:37as it were uh yeah i'd say mowing is but bunkers is also a big big labor cost uh i
11:43know we're going
11:44to touch on that later yeah but yeah no besides uh besides the greens bunkers are our biggest labor cost
11:56and why is that just the maintenance of them yeah and you know during heavy rain events we have to
12:01we used to have to get like three or four guys out here and and fix the washouts so it's
12:05manpower
12:06as much as the actual physical part of it as well yeah so the club looked at installing a liner
12:10um
12:11so it's a rubber crumb liner uh what that does is it prevents sand contamination uh weeds coming
12:17through the through the surface and it also helps us during those rain events with washouts from a
12:23playability point of view it's it's great for the golfers uh and it should last us you know for a
12:28good
12:2820 25 years now well i've got you i've got to ask when i end up in a bunker and
12:33i come out of that
12:34and i'm playing with my mates i've got to rake it quickly how should i be raking it how do
12:38you want
12:38to see it raked by us by golfers when we're out on the course yeah so i mean typically um
12:44you know
12:44when golfers come into a bunker they either you know some clubs don't have members that rate the
12:49bunkers after themselves you know we've all seen it um but we always see a pull in motion really we
12:54need
12:54what we need to see working in a pushing motion pushing away like that and i'll leave a nice nice
13:02area for if anybody was to land there after yourself and where should i leave the rage so
13:08oh is this is club by club it's an opinion it is an opinion what's your opinion i like to
13:13see them in
13:13the bunker just all in in the bunker yeah um if they're outside the bunker and a ball hits it
13:19you know it could rest up behind it don't want that don't want that it's interesting what you said about
13:23pushing motion i'm certainly when i'm busy raking it after i play i pull and says that gather the
13:31sand up and that's not that's not what you want so generally we find you know if we if you
13:37have
13:37complaints about bunkers it's about the sand depth you know there's not enough sand in there that's
13:40what i all yes and when we go and spend some time checking where all the sounds gone because it
13:44doesn't disappear that quickly we find it all built up on the back edge yeah and how long does sand
13:51last in the bunker are you having to come and replace these very often uh with the new tech
13:55and uh you know with the liner we're finding a lot less blowout and this type of sand is quite
14:00coarse
14:00sand so it doesn't splash or blow out quite as bad so it allows you to stay there a bit
14:05long what type
14:06of sand is this so this is china clear sand it's called is that just something that you guys chose
14:10that
14:11you want to do this course yeah there's different options right yeah it works quite well with the liner as
14:15well yeah so with it being quite coarse it packs into packs very well i'll keep prepping it
14:32press it down to drop it and then when you get to end it i'll point up
14:52all right then jake aeration yeah i think maybe one of the biggest bugbears of members but what
14:59we're going to chat about here is what it is and most importantly why it's so important so should we
15:04start with that why do you do aeration when you do it yeah so we typically aerate heavily during august
15:12yeah um space and what we're doing by aerating is we're allowing the plant to take up nutrients
15:18get gas and air in and around the roots and break up some compaction in the soil if you can
15:23imagine
15:23you know we've got mowers turf irons rolling you know going over the turf all the time we do get
15:28quite compact greens and when they when the soil structure is compact it makes the roots unable
15:34unable to spread and that stops growth yeah it stops growth the plant gets really unhealthy prone to
15:39disease uh so by aerating we get a better grass plant the reason we do it in august uh is
15:47because
15:47you know we just want the quick recovery yeah we want the quick recovery we do ours not long after
15:52club championships you know we get all the applaud it's a club championships and then you know the
15:57members turn up on a monday morning we do try and communicate the best we can yeah to them so
16:01they
16:01know it's coming as you said you've done them already we're filming in late august but you've allowed me
16:05to have a little go on the chipping area today which is great talk us through this machine then
16:08is it just it looks kind of like a torture device yeah so this is a toro pro core um
16:14it's a pedestrian
16:16pedestrian machine so when we use this the guys walk around the golf course tying all the greens
16:20it leaves a great finish afterwards but yeah it's it's a very very good piece of machinery this so for
16:27our main aeration which we do twice a year we'd be bigger time size yeah than this uh this is
16:33quite a
16:33small time so generally through the season we'll run these once a month or once every six weeks
16:39roughly so we use sand for two things really so it's for dilution of organic matter which is uh
16:44thatch people maybe know it as um so we're trying to break down that organic matter uh to allow for
16:50a firmer surface which will obviously allow for better putting surfaces um we can also use sand to try
16:57and make sand channels into pipe drainage which is below the surface so if we can get our percolation
17:02rates up it allows the greens again to be drier and firmer and especially through the winter that's
17:07what we want right jake we're doing a lot of sort of things i think a lot of people see
17:13green keep us
17:14doing with the equipment mowing greens but i want to talk technology now sort of the cutting edge stuff
17:18that you guys are using to help you better maintain a golf course really now i didn't hear about this
17:24before we spoke a couple days ago about it but it's it's sensors underneath the greens now talk me
17:29through what they are and what they help you guys do so what maya does it's a under soil sensor
17:36it feeds me data on soil temperature moisture salinity various other things but where it was
17:45really sort of crucial for me is the disease forecasting okay so how it works is if we see
17:52a small outbreak of disease i can send a whatsapp message to via and using an ai basically they
18:00build it builds data from throughout the year and it allows it allows it to predict disease outbreaks
18:07wow so i'll get a notification on my phone if you know the weather conditions are all lining for a
18:13for a disease outbreak and it just gives me that few days ahead of an outbreak so we want to
18:19be
18:19preventative rather than curative so as you can see here we've got a graph chart so that's given me
18:24the last four days and it's predicting the next 24 hours so if i see a spike on this graph
18:30here of a
18:31value over 40 i know we need to go and apply a product so at the minute we have had
18:36a slightly
18:36of anthracnose activity so you can see that sort of spike in the graph yeah and this would be just
18:42a
18:43godsend for you what what was the sort of process before you had this information was it a lot of
18:46guesswork was it a lot of presumption now now with some data behind you you can confidently go out
18:51and do what you're doing and use your labor more efficiently yeah yeah absolutely so before you know
18:56we were looking at um just the weather forecasts you know which is on the office yeah which is so
19:03you
19:03know so unpredictable so yeah no having it and being able to track it all on here yeah manually rather
19:09than the old paper diary is is fantastic yeah much more efficient i'm sure and uh i guess this is
19:14where
19:14it all happens isn't it yeah this is the heartbeat of edge baston's uh green keeping it's brilliant we
19:20love it jake now this is one i've not heard of before green firmness and we talk about green firm
19:29is kind of anecdotally all those greens are a bit firm today or soft or whatever here's a device that
19:33can give you an actual number yeah yeah how does this work so yeah we normally you know we take
19:38readings
19:38across the green and take an average yeah uh you'll see these quite used quite frequently at the open
19:42british open um links courses obviously have a tendency of getting almost too firm i guess they
19:47don't want it where there's ball it's windy especially that ball starts oscillating a bit
19:51yeah so the rna using this quite a lot uh the club's been edge baston golf club's been using it
19:56probably
19:56three or four years now okay and what's the actual unit of measurement uh so uh measuring a in a
20:01unit
20:02called gravities never heard of that before yeah so there's a ballpark figure um i think sort of
20:08day to day through the summer where we're aiming for 100 to 110 gravities okay let's have a little
20:13go with it then shall we so you showed me this before off camera blue pizza style but i'm going
20:18to hold this sort of what would you call that a plunger probe probe good yeah don't mind that
20:24so hold it about level to there keep going a bit higher yeah there you go and then just let
20:29go yeah
20:31there we go 99 so we're saying that's about right for you we did 111 earlier just off camera but
20:37you do this
20:37on different points around the green yeah take an average and that would be the same presumably for
20:42all 18 grains yeah we generally so what we'll do is we'll do six grains a week um we'll continue
20:47monitoring those grains throughout the week and then move on to another six and then and do it on
20:51the cycle over three weeks brilliant and gravity is a brand new unit of measurement i've never heard
20:55of uh lastly then we're going to do moisture and talk us through this sort of contraption you've got
21:00here and why you guys are using it at the minute yeah so this probe here um will give us
21:04a quick
21:05data on what the soil is doing underneath in terms of moisture content gone are the days where we
21:10have a lot of disposable water um golf clubs are trying to now be more sustainable and prevent over
21:16watering and things like that this year has been exceptionally wet yeah so we've not had much need
21:20to use water but this uh moisture probe will allow me to apply water to areas specific areas with a
21:28hose
21:29rather than running a sprinkler which isn't as accurate uh let's have a little look at this then just
21:33see what sort of data this gives us i'm sure it's pretty self-explanatory just so yeah if you just
21:37stab into the ground and press read it'll give you a reading
21:42so we've got on there 33.0 yep a little bit too high yeah it's quite high it's quite wet
21:48what sort of
21:49number are you looking at for like a yeah between 20 and 25 percent um we did have a bit
21:55of rain last
21:56night yeah so yeah we're a little bit higher than we'd like to be but that number will drop over
22:01the coming
22:06days uh well there we go jake i think we're about done for the day really appreciate you just showing
22:10the ropes i want to thank bigger for setting this opportunity up to sort of teach you guys a little
22:14bit about what uh green keepers like jake up and down the country across the world uh are up to
22:19um i've
22:20enjoyed it jake this is do you enjoy this sort of lifestyle you've been living looking after this
22:24beautiful golf course yeah i think it's a fantastic uh career done it's you know you get the beauty of
22:29being outdoors all day although the weather can be bad at times you know days like today
22:33make it worth it really yeah i think there's a huge misconception isn't there that green stuff all
22:38they do is more grass um you know i've heard it a few times from people outside of the industry
22:43you know i kind of laugh i wish i did only just cut grass it made my life a lot
22:48easier
22:49but yeah i know there's a lot more to green keeping and the way technology is moving now
22:53it's uh it's definitely going to become more and more of a thing well it's jake thank you for having
22:58us really appreciate it got a beautiful golf course here um hopefully you've learned a little bit
23:02about what jake and his crew and teams up and down the country across the world get up to uh
23:06thank
23:07you for watching hope you enjoyed it and uh coffee i think yeah absolutely
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