Hampshire, England: A new Toro irrigation system is allowing Barton-on-Sea Golf Club to take control of Mother Nature. As a result, it’s seeing huge savings in efficiencies. 

Situated on the coastal cliff on the south coast of England, between Christchurch in Dorset and Lymington in Hampshire, Barton-on-Sea Golf Club is a true links course in a windy and exposed location, which means an efficient irrigation system is vital to help control the elements and safeguard the course against Mother Nature.

Course Manager Jon Worrall said: “Our job is to protect the grass against the damaging and drying salt winds. We needed an irrigation solution which would allow us to pinpoint coverage, apply product to specific areas and water it in and be more efficient with our water application.”

The efficiency of the system, which is a Toro Lynx Central Control System, Infinity sprinklers on the greens, approaches and fairways, B Series on the tees and all new pipework across the 27-hole course, was noticeable to Worrall and the team straight away.

He said: “Previously it was taking us seven to eight hours a night to water the greens, tees and approaches. Now it takes us one hour.

“We’ve got more pressure in the system than before and with that we get more coverage and can irrigate a far bigger area with less water. That’s working out to be 30 per cent more efficient for us.” 

Worrall praises the Infinity sprinklers, of which he has 1,245, as being ‘particularly good for our location because of their unique ability to keep their arc in the wind and keep the water going where it needs to.

“We couldn’t find any other sprinklers that could do that,” said Worrall, who opted for full course coverage including fairways for the first time – a trend noted by Reesink Hydro-Scapes, sole Toro distributor in the United Kingdom for irrigation products.  

Previously, clubs could rely on Mother Nature to irrigate this area sufficiently, but with increasingly warmer weather, more regular heat waves and less precipitation every year, this area is suffering. 

That’s something Worrall confirms was happening at Barton-on-Sea. He said: “We don’t mind the fairways brown but we want them alive! So we had the irrigation extended, it was only an extra 15 per cent cost to do this which is money well spent to keep them healthy and maintain the traditional links effect.

“With it, we basically do what the weather used to do for us and put a thunderstorm’s worth of water down once a week. That does the job.”

The results from the new irrigation have been noticeable to all, especially the 1,150 members.

Worrall said: “Previously it was too stressful and damaging to cut the grass across the course too low, but with the new system and the grass healthier and stronger, we’ve been able to make some significant reductions in cutting heights.

“We were having to cut tees and approaches at 12 mm. Now we can cut at half that. Fairways are down 4 mm to 14 mm and greens are finally at 3 mm. The members are delighted with the improvements in presentation and play with these drops in cut.”

The efficiencies don’t end there. Worrall confirms his use of herbicides, wetting agents and turf feed is going further. He said: “There’s far less wastage. It’s hard to think of an area where this system hasn’t made us more efficient.”

Toro is an Executive Member of the Asian Golf Industry Federation.