Minchinhampton Golf Club is committed to environmental and ecological best practice throughout its business activities. To this end a qualified and experienced person is employed to manage all environmental work on behalf of the club.
The golf industry has run an environment competition open to all golf clubs for many years. This competition was run by the British and International Golf Greenkeepers Association (BIGGA) from 1997 until 2008 during which time Minchinhampton Golf Club won the Best Newcomer in 2003, was the National Winner in 2004 and received a Highly Commended Certificate in 2008.
The Environment & Ecology Department of the Sports Turf Research Institute (STRI), whose staff had provided the judging for BIGGA took over the competition in 2009 following a re-branding to “The Golf Course Environment Awards”. In 2009 Matt Worster (Minchinhampton Golf Club - Ecology Coordinator) won the inaugural “Conservation Greenkeeper of the Year” award in recognition of his enthusiasm and dedication to the environmental work he undertakes and manages on behalf of the club.
» www.golfenvironmentawards.com
Minchinhampton Golf Club lies on free draining soil above a limestone brash geology. The typical habitat types found in the area are unimproved limestone grasslands and beech woodland. Minchinhampton Golf Club aims to create, restore and enhance such habitat types found on its land to ensure the golf courses sit as comfortably as possible in the landscape and provide a rich resource for local wildlife.
The Cherington Course 12th Hole
The rough grassland off line is termed as “Ecology Rough” and is managed through annual or biannual cutting and scarifying with all clippings collected. Over time this practice will lower the nutrient load in the soil, which will reduce the competitive ability of the grass species and produce gaps for the establishment of wildflowers typical of grasslands in the area.
This practice increases the plant species diversity of the grassland and improves the quality of the habitat resource (especially for insects and birds). This work can also speed up the pace of play on the golf course because errant golf balls can be found in thinner species rich swards much quicker than in dense rank grass swards.
Since this management regime began 8 years ago the species diversity of the ecology rough has increased dramatically and wildflowers typical of calcareous grasslands can be found around much of the site.
Minchinhampton Golf Club is proud to have 3 wildlife ponds tucked away in quiet areas of the courses. These features have been created purely for the benefit of local wildlife and will be allowed to mature overtime with minimal management interference. The wildlife ponds will become home to a large diversity of invertebrates, amphibians, such as newts and provide drinking water for mammals.
There are two lakes on site that have been built primarily as irrigation water reservoirs, however they do also provide an important aquatic resource. Both lakes have been planted with aquatic plants for the benefit of wildlife and are now regularly visited and used by swans and other wildfowl such as coots and ducks.
The Avening Course, 10th Hole Tee
Trees are a very important resource for any golf club and one which needs managing sensitively and professionally. Minchinhampton Golf Club uses a tree sub-committee to manage the trees. The tree sub-committee is comprised of staff and volunteer members who have significant arboriculture expertise. The tree sub-committee surveys the plantations, noting the health, spacing, species diversity and factors such as damage. Trees can then be monitored effectively and those that need to be removed can be marked for thinning. Thinning takes place annually on a rotation whereby only trees located around 6 of the 36 holes are thinned. Thinning of the pine trees on the Avening course is important for the health of the native deciduous trees planted amongst them and to improve the aesthetics of the course in the landscape. Logs produced from thinning are either used to make eco-piles around the courses or are split and used in the clubhouse wood burner.
There is a wide diversity of hedges present around the courses. We are lucky to have mature hedges retained from the previous agricultural land use which have wide dense bases and form a very valuable habitat resource. Hedges were also planted in the mid 1990’s around the Cherington course and these have now reached the condition where they can be laid. Two members of the greenstaff were given hedge-laying tuition and they have gone on to lay several sections of hedgerow around the site. New hedges have been planted recently, funded through the Countryside Stewardship Scheme, which will be laid in the future and others stocked up to fill gaps and allow for eventual re-laying.
Drystone walls are a famous feature of the Cotswolds. Many of the walls around the courses have fallen in to a bad state of repair, but the club has begun a program of rebuilding to counter this problem. The club is fortunate to have an experienced and qualified drystone wall builder on the greenkeeping team and he leads the rebuilding work each winter. A significant number of the internal walls on the Cherington course have been rebuilt to a high standard, improving the aesthetics of the course for players and public alike.
Minchinhampton Golf Club has a strong recycling policy and endeavours to minimise waste wherever possible. All cardboard, office paper, plastic bottles, cans and glass is collected and recycled by a local company. A recycling unit has been purchased and installed outside the clubhouse to communicate our commitment to waste management and to deal with the waste generated in this area effectively. This unit will be complemented by wooden recycling units, which will be installed at both 10th tees during the spring 2010.
Large quantities of organic waste in the form of grass clippings from greens, tees & ecology rough, leaves, branches, wood chippings and bunker edgings are generated each year. This material is stored and periodically mixed in a shredding machine to make compost. The compost is arranged in low windrow heaps and is turned every 6-8 weeks. After 6 months a compost product will have been produced that can be used for a wide variety of jobs, such as repairing worn areas and mixing in to rootzone for tee and bunker construction. The compost product produced gets better year on year as the methods of production are fine tuned. We will soon have compost that can be used for divot filling and for top-dressing tees and fairways, which will reduce reliance upon bought in material reducing both costs and the carbon associated with haulage.
Stage one of the scheme saw the replacement of over 200 55W halogen light bulbs replaced with 11W energy efficient LED bulbs, which produce more light than the old inefficient ones, whilst using a fraction of the energy. Stage two of the scheme will hopefully see an improved lighting scheme for the main clubrooms, which can be easily and effectively managed through light sensors, movement sensors and staff input to reduce energy usage without having a negative impact upon user comfort.
An energy survey was carried out on the Clubhouse and Greenkeeping buildings by Severn Wye Energy Agency (SWEA) recently.
The aim of this survey was to identify how and where energy is used and how usage could be reduced. SWEA produced a report of its findings and an action plan of improvements.
