RStG & RCP ryegrass rivalry

The healthy friendly rivalry between the members of Royal St George’s at Sandwich a mile from Royal Cinque Ports at Deal as to which has the finest championship course has been a debating subject for many years.

Both have staged The Open and the Amateur Championships and in their different designs both are enormously enjoyable to play.

Finegolf has already published reviews and updates of both Clubs that can be read HERE (St George’s) and HERE (Deal) and they both get five star ‘Joy-to-be-alive’ ratings.

What this article explores is the difference in the agronomy of the two courses and how this has changed over the years and particularly the influence of ryegrass on the playing conditions.

Both courses had ‘target’ greens dominated by annual meadow grass (Poa annua) and other weed grasses like ryegrass and Yorkshire fog through the 1980s and 90s.

As part of the important post-millenium move back to the running game, led by American money building a number of new ‘running golf ‘ courses in Scotland, in the noughties a sensible secretary of Deal asked Jim Arthur for his advice.

Jim had a protege, having worked closely with him during the 1990s, and he recommended they retain Gordon Irvine MG as the best greenkeeping consultant to help Barney Barnard, the Deal course manager, to change the greens to fescue/browntop bent fine grasses.  Nick Park who was a friend of the then secretary also pushed for Gordon’s involvement.

Barney sucked up Gordon’s advice like a sponge and they achieved much success and the greens started to firm up and roll out. See the attribution given by Deal’s Chair of Green in 2009 of Gordon’s comprehensive contribution.

With the Club leadership changing at Deal, Barney subsequently moved on to Le Touquet to change the La Mer course back to a running course with fine grasses. This was from a condition that George Peper and Malcolm Campbell in their monumental and well researched book reviewing all the world’s ‘links’ courses titled: ‘True Links’ published in 2010 and reviewed HERE, where they describe La Mer as too claustrophobic (too many trees!), with a pond in play at two holes and “at best it has become a parkland/links mix”.

Barney helped again by Gordon Irvine transformed it back to the open running Links it is today, which is reviewed HERE.

I mention all of this because it is important before going on to talk about what has happened at both St George’s and Deal in the last ten years that we remember that Deal had a head start in having changed their greens already to predominantly fine firm grasses.

Royal St George’s appointed Paul Larsen while Royal Cinque Ports appointed James Bledge as their respective course managers. Both have their own place within the Greenkeeping fraternity and evolved radically different approaches as to how to improve their courses.

Their public personas were also different with, I am told, James, unlike older traditional greenkeepers who would usually keep to themselves, he communicates extremely well, marketing himself expertly through modern techniques and social media. He is quoted about the controversial new par three at Hoylake in an article about their recent Open Championship.

Paul’s wild hair and Converse trainer shoes caught the imagination of the mainstream golf media when he was interviewed on TV around the time of the thunderously successful presentation of the Royal St George’s course at The Open Championship in 2021, and this unfortunately may have drawn people’s attention away from his remarkable agronomic achievements. See National Golfer interview as an example.

Paul, also has a large social media following, and it is based upon the promotion of greenkeeping styles and particularly the use of fescues. He puts part of his success down to the influence musician Robert Smith has had on him, and feels it has helped him prove “content will always overcome any obstacles if you stick to your beliefs”.

Paul certainly decided to take the St George’s agronomy dilemma by its horns, using a combination of ecologically natural methods as well as using the chemical ‘Rescue’ that was a selective herbicide that kills ryegrass and Yorkshire Fog while leaving the weed annual meadow grass (Poa annua) alone.

Why is Ryegrass so controversial from a playing perspective I touch on later but what are the simple pros and cons of ryegrass?

Ryegrass is a ‘sticky’, ‘target-golf’ grass of dark green hue which aggressively and quickly establishes itself. It has a tufted habit that never forms a really close knit turf. It needs much higher inputs of water and fertiliser in its maintenance than do the fine grasses of fescues and browntop bents. Ryegrass is argued by some, to wear better than fescue/bent turf in high traffic non-playing areas like paths.

Paul experimented on his roughs to start with and his approach has been successful in replacing the formerly thick claggy roughs that contained a lot of ryegrass, creating a healthy dune grassland habitat. This has been achieved by not just the use of ‘Rescue’ but managed burning and scarifying and creating open sandy wastes, along with some experimentation with hardy, drought-resistant sheep’s fescue grasses.

Paul’s Conservation Greenkeeping helped ground-nesting birds and rare lizard orchids, as well as speeding up play with fewer lost balls.

Then one autumn, delayed from the spring when the weather went against him, he sprayed ‘Rescue’ on the greens and their surroundings. Most people would have panicked as he lost 60% of the grass cover on some of the greens! He was left with predominantly annual meadow grass (Poa annua) for the remaining 40%.

Apart from anything else this proved how absolutely appalling were the Sandwich greens and why The R&A were sucking their teeth as to whether The Open Championship should return now they had courses like Royal Portrush and possibly Portmarnock, with their wonderful fine grasses agronomy, coming on the Open venue rota.

You can imagine though the howls of criticsm and anguish. Luckily Paul was protected by his Secretary and two resilient Chairs of Green from the anger of the London dominated membership, some of whom initially were in denial about the need to change the incredibly poor agronomic condition of the green complexes, perhaps because they had got used to the soft annual meadow grass ‘target-golf’ greens at their London heathland clubs.

READ HERE an article from February 2023 titled “St George’s Triumvirate” that explains the importance of the support Paul received from his secretary and chairs of green.

He was of course ready with his Vredo fescue over-seeder slitting machine and after three passes in different directions, by the following spring, the green complexes had been changed to a high degree of fescues and along with the work over the following few years to consolidate the change to firm, fine fescues, the rest is history.

After the much praised 2021 Open Championship that had been brought back to Sandwich after an eleven year absence, the Club’s leadership changed and Paul moved on from the Club leaving behind a course that is predominantly, throughout, fine fescue with very little ryegrass or Yorkshire fog and only a smattering of annual meadow grass (Poa annua).

Everybody who plays it, is amazed at its high quality playing condition and though it is highly manicured for the TV cameras like all the tournament courses these days, it nevertheless still exudes a feel of raw naturalness among the dunes.

READ HERE an article from June 2021 called “Royal St George’s truth” that gives mote detailed information about Paul’s achievements.

READ ALSO HERE an article and the comments below, where FineGolf called for golf’s leadership to lobby for a MBE to be given to Paul. In FineGolf’s view this was a rare opportunity to praise a greenkeeper for his monumental work in returning a great course back to the Open Championship rota, just as John Philp (a member of FineGolf’s Advisory Panel) had been given an MBE for his similar work at Carnoustie. It would have also celebrated the conservationist fine grasses policy he had used, which was a personification of The R&A’s new agronomic policy they call ‘sustainable’.

Paul is just the sort of personality who would have helped upgrade the public’s image of professional greenkeeping to a more modern, ecological and exciting one, if his thoughts and achievements had been given the chance of wider exposure.

Unfortunately this opportunity to raise the profile of the greenkeeping profession using one of the few natural showmen in greenkeeping was squandered and it did not break into the golf media’s discussion or even into BIGGA’s (the greenkeeper’s trade union) magazines. FineGolf puts this down to the business model pursued by BIGGA’s leaders rather than the wishes of most greenkeepers.

Whereas, turning to Royal Cinque Ports where they had previously a finer greens agronomy than Royal St George’s, now ten years on, St George’s has run past them.

How has this happened? I have explained the wonderful work that Paul led at Royal St George’s and we now need to consider Royal Cinque Ports a mile just along the coast at Deal.

In summary, in FineGolf’s view, Deal was overtaken because the Deal team, now changed from those there in the noughties who took Jim Arthur’s advice, now ignored the late Jim Arthur’s clear advice in his book.

Why is Jim Arthur so important to greenkeeping and the enjoyment of golfers?

Jim Arthur, who advised over 500 golf clubs on their agronomy over a sixty year career and The R&A for some 25 years on their Open Championship venues, was persuaded to write the “Bible of Greenkeeping” to capture his thoughts for posterity. They were then published by The R&A, titled: ‘Practical Greenkeeping’. This book is available from the R&A’s online shop for £29.95 and contains also an amazing chapter on traditional course architecture and the full history of greenkeeping.

FineGolf recommends it should be read by every Chair of Green and member of any Green Committee if they want to understand the fundamental issues of the greenkeeping dichotomy that they are supposed to be looking after on behalf of their Clubs and members, who want enjoyment but usually lack an appreciation of the importance of different grasses and agronomy.

On page 154 Jim wrote as a summary of his detailed thoughts on ryegrass: “Ryegrass has no place on any golf course”.

James Bledge is not alone among some greenkeepers in using the new strain of so-called ‘dwarf ‘ ryegrasses. They certainly establish quickly and that was attractive in 2018 and 2022 after some courses lost grass cover in the heatwaves and associated droughts.

If new grasses are developed that perform better than fescues and browntop bents in our temperate climate then they should be celebrated.

What is important though, is that proper independent research is done identifying the performance indicators and how the grasses perform should be measured objectively in a playing environment. Unfortunately, there is no systematic independent research on ryegrass playing performance, at least of which FineGolf is aware.

The two leading grass seed breeders (Barenbrug and DLF Johnsons) have spent much investment over the past twenty years developing new strains of what they call ‘dwarf ‘ ryegrass, and have had success in selling their product to a number of golf clubs including some running-golf courses.

Trump Aberdeen has ryegrass paths; Woking and The Berkshire, taking STRI advice, have experimented with a mix of ryegrass for some of their fairways and green run-offs; Portstewart experimented with a ryegrass/fescue mix for its first tee and Parkstone and Wentworth have used ryegrass on some of their aprons. Even Sunningdale has a ryegrass path. Goodwood has sown whole fairways with ryegrass.

In an attempt to give some anecdotal ryegrass playing performance feedback, I should add firstly, that the Portstewart course manager told me recently that with his conservation greenkeeping programme based on Jim Arthur’s five principles (see pages 43/44 in ‘Practical Greenkeeping‘) that include low inputs of water, fertiliser and pesticides to encourage his fescue/bents, the ryegrass on his first tee, needing high fertiliser and water inputs to survive, has pleasingly now died out leaving a beautiful, tightly knitted, fescue turf.

Secondly, Woking needed to use a Graden type machine to dig out the ryegrass thatch that had formed on its third fairway.

Thirdly, The Berkshire, normally set-up as a running course, extraordinarily used ryegrass around their Blue eleventh green. It is easier for the golfer if he uses a ‘flop’ shot for recovery rather than a bump-and-run from this grass.

Thirdly, the nature of ‘sticky’ ryegrass makes it difficult to bump-and-run the ball through it and though I tried experimentally three times to run the ball on to the Parkstone twelfth green they all got stuck in the ryegrass apron and the only way of playing the approach shot at this attractive short par four was to fly it high to the green. If greens are receptive, soft, annual meadow grass, which they were predominantly at Parkstone, then you can stop your ball. On a running-golf course with fescue/bent firm greens it would take a lot of backspin to hold the ball from bouncing through, hence the need for firm fine turf on aprons across which you can run the ball in.

Fourthly, more money has been invested in paths at the top end clubs in the last ten years than almost anything else as they seem to compete as to who can look the smartest. FineGolf’s own view is, though the exceptionally expensive brown rubber paths are good on the feet and sort of blend in, the most natural of paths are like those found at Rye GC made of low cost secure pebbles. Those with trolleys may find them a bit bumpy but then a proper golfer carries his bag!

The move to ryegrass paths are part of this new “smart artificiality” and though they are at least made of grass their dark colour still makes them stick out. They take costly high inputs of water and fertiliser and much maintenance with sharp bladed mowers to keep them tidy. An example of the maintenance difficulty they pose is this Sunningdale poorly presented ryegrass path.

Fifthly, Following the hotest long period since 1976 in 2018 some courses after losing grass cover took advice from the STRI and The R&A agronomists to overseed with ryegrasses to gain quick establishment across their fairways.

Nevertheless, when the heatwave came back in 2022 courses like Goodwood were caught out and their ryegrass fairways were devastated. Ryegrass does not grow deep roots nor does it like heat and unlike fescue/bent turf with its deep roots, it is not drought resistant.

It is worth mentioning that the Woodbridge course manager, though his fescue fairways went brown, they quickly turned back to green when the rain came in 2018 and 2022 because as part of his conservation greenkeeping programme, thinks that having not watered them over the years this encouraged the fescue grasses to grow deeper roots to find deep moisture, and this protects the plant when the droughts come.

So, FineGolf’s summary of the playing performance of ryegrass is that it is a sticky, soft ‘target-golf ‘ grass and not forming tightly knitted, firm, turf does not suit the fairway of a running-golf course. I would not have thought anybody advises its use on greens.

As a semi-rough, it looks artificial in its dark colour against the lighter coloured wispy fescues.

As a deeper rough, it is claggy to play out of, that is if you can find your ball, whereas  long spindly fescues swaying in the breeze may look daunting from the tee but the base of the grass is open and your ball can usually be found and extracted even if the grasses do wrap round the club and provide a half shot penalty which is appropriate for being in there!

So, coming back to Royal Cinque Ports at Deal, I played there again recently with two golf club secretaries from other clubs on an almost windless day and I was pleased to score 38 stapleford points and much enjoyed the course and the pretty firm greens that were running at around 8’.

We all had some difficulty in not leaving our putts shy of the hole as they looked faster than they played, nevertheless it was good to see the greens not shaved down for speed and I had a number of good twelve footer putts and one of certainly twenty foot or more.

Nevertheless, the course gave an artificial feel in places where there was the dark green lush ryegrasses on most of the paths and particularly where some of the ryegrass semi roughs abut the lighter green of the predominantly fescue fairways.

An example of this is the thick dark green semi rough that snakes around the bunker and up the hill on the left of the approach to the seventeenth green. That set-up is almost parkland-like rather than the running game.

While playing a competitive round of golf I was somewhat constrained but I took the opportunity to have a look at the grasses on the playing areas. I found ryegrass and have photos of it, in the semi roughs on the second, and ninth holes (and it looked as though it was in many other semi roughs as well).

Ryegrass was found in a divot taken by one of my partners from the seventh fairway, and also in a plug I extracted from the new sixteenth fairway.

This fits in with the comments made by Barenbrug’s technical manager, the experienced David Greenshields when he gave an advertorial public seminar on their new ‘dwarf’ ryegrasses at the greenkeepers trade show BTME in Harrogate. He boasted that both the St Andrews Old course and Royal Cinque Ports had used Barenbrug’s new ryegrasses on their mown playing surfaces. READ HERE a report on the trade show.

The able and personable Deal secretary was at pains afterwards to assure me that they have only ever overseeded the fairways and greens with pure fescues and not only were the members, but also The R&A agronomist, happy with the state of the course.

He noted that the new sixteenth fairway had been overseeded using plugs of soil from other areas of the course that maybe had ryegrass in them and so ryegrass may have been transferred to the new fairway.

I asked him whether they might use the ‘Laser’ product (similar to ‘Rescue’ which has now been taken off the market) to clean up their greens and fairways from ryegrass and Yorkshire fog but he felt that was unlikely at the moment as it might take out too much grass cover.

As a conclusion in the comparison I pose with Royal St George’s, FineGolf can only say, from a golfer’s playing perspective, that Paul has done a better job than James, as they both move on.

So there we have it, The R&A agronomist is happy with the state of one of GB&I’s finest running courses that has ryegrass on mown playing areas. Its enough to make the greatest golf agronomist that the world has ever seen turn in his grave!

Through out this story you can see how club leaderships have changed and their club’s agronomy with them. There is no reason why particularly well drained courses can not have the right fine grasses to give the most enjoyable running game, it just needs the correct conservationist greenkeeping programme

One further note is that the Chair of Green at Deal is now Chair of Green at Royal St George’s and one of James’s team at Deal is now course manager at Royal St George’s.

FineGolf is always interested in hearing from golfers and greenkeepers to add to our anecdotal evidence to build up the research of ryegrass playing and maintenance performance. Do be in touch at lorne.finegolf@gmail.com