Private Client, Hampshire

Following a recommendation from an old farming contact of Michael Abbott, MJ Abbott were approached by a local golf professional to assist with an area of existing farmland which our client was planning to change into a private golf course area.

The area was very flinty and our advice and expertise were sought with a view to provide a price to stone pick and seed the area to a standard suitable for use as a private golf course. The greens were to be synthetic greens constructed by Huxley Golf and would be constructed the following year once the seeded areas had a chance to establish.

Upon visiting the site it was very much apparent, given the extremely flinty nature of the site topsoil, that intensive stone picking, stone burying and cultivation operations would be required to enable a suitable surface to be created for use as a private golf course.

The plan proposed by the golf professional was to create four new golf greens to form a compact course which could be played from various tee locations to create a 9 hole golf course with a mixture of Par 3's, 4’s and 5’s. A further green with multiple tees was proposed to create a short game practice area and a hitting strip was also proposed to enable a practice driving area over the proposed 1st Green.

Due to the large site and smooth-flowing topography with a lot of natural interest and variation, we offered additional shaping and construction works outside of the basic stone picking and seeding operations to create golf features that would be in keeping with a fully established golf course.

Following our initial site visit we prepared an estimate to carry out the stone picking, stone burying, grade rolling and seeding works to all golf and surrounding areas together with the option for additional feature shaping works to greens, tees and fairway swales.

We were appointed for the full scope of works in June 2014, and works commenced in early July 2014 and began by stone picking the bulk of the site, followed by stone burying and grade rolling operations.

Following the initial stone picking works, topsoil was stripped from the proposed greens and immediate surrounds, prior to the greens being cut and filled to create the desired greens formations and levels. The greens formations were then final trimmed prior to the existing topsoil being re-spread to the greens surrounds on completion.

Additional shaping areas were also created outside of the green working areas to create grass hollows and swales to provide more interest to fairways. These features have been shaped to enable future bunkers to be cut out if required.

The tee sites were also cut and filled to create raised teeing platforms for added definition to the golf holes.

The green and tee surrounds were then cultivated and seeded with compact equipment to a hand raked finish prior to the remaining bulk areas being final graded, stone picked and stone buried again if required and seeded on completion.

The decision was made to split the quantity of seed laid as it was early August and the weather had been extremely hot and dry, so there was a risk of the grass seed not establishing. Following seeding the weather was sufficiently wet to enable to grass to establish.

We carried out a number of cuts to the area while a part-time greenkeeper was being appointed and machinery purchased to enable ongoing maintenance by the client. Selective herbicide was applied to the area in late Autumn with a liquid feed to harden the grass plants going into the winter months.

The area is establishing well and is on track for the synthetic greens to be constructed in early 2015, prior to the course being first used by the client in the Spring and Summer of 2015.