The environmental rough though out of direct line of play except for the very wayward golf shot provides good definition to the holes as well as providing a very valuable habitat for small mammals,insects and birds.Its in this rough you are likely to see the pheasants,hares and other small animals.
It is important that this management programme is carried out annually,by cutting and collecting we are removing nutrients held in the grass leaves,and this will help reduce the vigour of the plant.
By annually cutting these areas we prevent the natural ingress of coarse weeds and scrub which would quickly colonise in these areas and reduce the grass land.This natural process can be seen in different areas around the course where we have allowed the natural change of grass to scrub land, and this will further progess in time from scrubland to woodland.An example can be seen between the 5th and 6th holes of the Hawk course which was at one time all grassland but this is now changing as we allow scrub to develop and seperated the view between the 2 holes .
As part of our management programme we use selective herbicides on those areas were course weeds start to dominant especially creeping thistle and bristle ox tongue to keep the enviro rough clean and aesthetically pleasing to the eye.
We will be using a product in certain areas called Rescue which helps to control and remove certain coarse species of grass and this will help us to produce a finer grass sward.which will be less vigorous in growth and easier to find balls in. This is an on going year by year programme which is now showing signs of improvement in the environmental rough .
