Rebuilding The Bathtub 14th Green

The decision was made to rebuild the 14th green which for a good few years now has not been able to sustain year round play, in the winters the green would sit wet and flood easily .Soil profiles taken showed a band of clay on average 12 " below the surface and about 3" thick , on top of this there was also a heavily compacted black layer. This Dew Pond Construction would have been the way the green was originally built back in the 1890s as the only irrigation back then came from the Sky ! In that era holding moisture in the rootzone was very important for keeping grass cover on the greens during summer play.In todays modern era we have irrigation systems and use them sparingly when required to get the correct balance of turf health and firmness.

                                               The 3 Pictures above show the Clay Band .

We stripped away all the turf and rootzone which will be recycled/reused .The clay was stripped away seperatley and set aside for the local pottery company to have !

Once all the junk had been stripped away to pure sand we built the sub base up with more sand.

                               After the sub base was in and shaped we added 11" of our own rootzone.

We have also extended the green back a few yards to gain more pin placements and spread wear ,bearing in mind the extension to the green and the poor quality of the original turf we have bought in new turf to give us consistency over the whole green .The weather during the reconstruction was challenging to say the least !With the usual frosts ,snow ,blizzards,monsoons ect.We also had a weeks delay on the turf being delivered to us because England was flooded !We believe that we have preseved the original iconic charachter the Bathtub green is famous for and the green given time to mature will support year round play .From a greenkeepers point of view this green has been our Achilles Heel primarily because of the poor drainage ,with reconstruction now complete we have nicknamed The Bath Tub -------The Sieve ! : )