Faversham

Inland Faversham breaks through to perennial fescue greens.

Before talking about Faversham I want to talk about the important context of leadership in how this Club has, against all the odds, achieved getting into FineGolf’s finest 200 running courses in GB&I.

When one says to a golfer: “Do you enjoy playing on firm running turf. “ They more often than not respond with: “You mean links golf?”

The Faversham clubhouse

In addition, Americans whose golf at home in a hot climate is played on ‘target’ soft greens of different grasses than in GB&I, when they come to GB&I they are usually looking for the traditional running game and by calling it ‘Links Golf’ have influenced our vocabulary.

This nomenclature of ‘firm turf’ being called ‘links turf’ is all wrong as it is not the fact that all ‘running’ courses have to be by the sea and on linksland.

The important determinant as to whether a golfer can play the three-dimensional  ‘running game’ on a course all year round is the fact that it is easier to grow the perennial fescue/bent grasses, which give firm, tight turf, on well-draining land than on lush badly drained muddy parkland which in turn encourages annual meadow grass (Poa annua) and their soft receptive greens and the two-dimensional game.

Dr Alistair Mackenzie’s original Faversham course with open spaces.

Some of GB&I’s finest designed courses are the inland courses on heathland, downland and moorland that also have good natural drainage and with correct maintenance can support fine, firm, indigenous perennial fescue/bent turf, that gives the “running game”.

Nevertheless, what is it that makes for example the famous heathland clubs around London, the likes of Sunningdale, Swinley Forest, The Berkshire continue to have Poa greens that are soft and receptive for at least some nine months of the year?

Is it because most greenkeepers do not have the experience of correctly managing fine fescue/bent turf? Is greenkeeper education focused correctly?

Certainly BIGGA (the Greenkeepers’ association) having major financial sponsorship from fertiliser/pesticide chemical companies, and with over, some 80% of its members managing predominantly annual meadow grass (Poa annua) greens, it is not surprising that its CEO prefers to talk about the vague concept of ‘sustainability’ rather than promote the type of fescue/bent grass greenkeeping that uses few fertiliser/pesticide chemicals in their maintenance.

This maybe is understandable within BIGGA’s present business model but is their national greenkeeping leadership on this issue helpful to golfers who are not interested in types of grass but are looking for the maximum enjoyment?

FineGolf would suggest that it is generally agreed that the majority of GB&I golfers get more enjoyment when playing on firm turf than on soft turf.

So in this review of Faversham FineGolf is pleased to give an example of how an inland club can change from ‘target’ golf to ‘running’ golf within five years with little disruption to golfers.

FineGolf has therefore come to the conclusion that it comes down to the inability of the leadership within these London heathland clubs to bring about the necessary change, for whatever reason.

There are so many enjoyment win-wins for golfers in playing on firm fescue/bent turf, and a new one is appearing following the “Starmer EU re-set”, which will increase the number of fungicides being banned. Fungicides are needed by Poa greenkeepers, whereas fescue/bent turf does not need fungicides.

The Faversham Club leadership has committed to change and retaining the best expertise in GB&I to advise on both the technical aspects as well as helping communicate with and give to the membership a vision of greater enjoyment for the future.

Wild flowers on the bank of the downhill par three 16th with the 18th green in the background.

The radical change to the running game at Faversham is happening with the members support.

Only six years ago Faversham was a lush, tree encroached parkland on rolling ground with pure annual meadow grass (Poa anuua) greens that needed lots of fertiliser, water and pesticides to help the shallow rooted annual grass to survive and resist disease. Seeding was rife which made putts bobble and slowed them down, increasing pressure on the greenkeeper to reduce the height of cut to gain putting speed in order to compete with other annual meadow grassed courses in the area. The course was spiralling downwards.

What happened? The Club’s leadership appointed Paul Smith as General Manager some fifteen years ago but it was not until Rob Clark came back to the club as course manager seven years ago that things really started to change.

He and Rob Kyle, his assistant, continuously bounce ideas off each other and they have been lucky to have committed Chair of Greens like Phl Haines and now Stephen Blythin who have backed their decisions to transform the course.

Some trees down on the second hole

This transformation is an ongoing project which, unusually, started with changing the greens agronomy as the first priority, coupled with taking some trees out to let the air and sun in.

Four years ago I was surprised to receive a call from Gordon Irvine MG (a member of FineGolf’s Advisory Panel) mentioning that this, to me ‘unheard of club’ Faversham in Kent was going in the right direction.

Faversham has now jumped into FineGolf’s 200 finest running courses in GB&I and with a two star rating in the “Joy-to-be-alive” feeling it gives.

There is a long way still to go and if the Club’s policy can hold firm, with the leadership continuing to convince the members with the right type of education and open communication that investing in Rob’s projects will enhance their enjoyment, there is no reason why this Club should not run up the wider ratings tables, attract more visitors all round the year and in due course gain a three and then a four star FineGolf rating.

Gordon Irvine MG

We must remember firstly, that the key to all this change was that Europe’s most experienced greenkeeper consultant for changing to fine grasses, Gordon Irvine MG, was retained.

Rob Clark

And secondly, they have a greenkeeper in Rob Clark who has shown all the skills to lead and coordinate both the projection of a new “running golf vision” as well as implementing the detailed technical requirements of the change. 

Rob Clark has religiously kept to Gordon’s “Jim Arthur” greenkeeping programme, (A programme that some other less able greenkeepers sometimes reject as being old fashioned, while they get enticed by the expensive sales talk of the fertiliser and pesticide salesmen to help manage their annual meadow grass (Poa annua) greens).

Major tree clearance on the south west side of the attractive par three 9th.

Six years later most of the greens are now a mix of fine grasses, initially Browntop bent and now a good and increasing amount of fescue.

The best green, the eighteenth just outside the clubhouse, has now no annual meadow grass to be seen. There was no seeding whatsoever when I played a match there this May, at a time when the vast majority of GB&I greens were Poa seeding like mad.

Teeing up on the un-tree lined seventh pre-second world war.

Cut at a high 5mm, the smoothness of roll-out of putts at around the ideal speed of 9.5’ grew my putting confidence as we played around the course which culminated in me slotting a downhill curly twelve footer on the 18th green to halve the match(!) because I had the confidence by then to let the ball run out on the line I had chosen, with the ball taking the bend as it slowed to the hole.

If the green had been Poa, and on the one hand, shaved to give speed, apart from creating fear of the eight footer back, it would have been complete luck if it had dropped. On the other hand if the poa was cut above 4mm the ball would bobble on the seeds and snake around reducing the golfer’s confidence.

The tenth green from the fairway in 2023.

Long putting on Poa, as I accomplished well at Blackwell recently, is less of a problem when you are looking for a lag close to the hole. But when you are really trying to drop the putt from about twelve feet and less, Poa greens give a inconsistency problem, which disturbs the mind and unfocuses the golfer.

From behind the tenth green pre-war.

It is much more fun to be looking to drop every putt than being fearful of how they will run.

There are still some weaker Faversham greens like the third with some seeding annual meadow grass but one could see that it was slightly yellowing as the austere ‘programme’ encourages the fescues/bents to take over.

The original nine hole course was designed in conjunction by James Braid and JH Taylor. The only original hole is the fourteenth and this is planned to be changed into a more interesting and longer dogleg in the new Master Plan.

Rob Clark by researching the Club archives discovered that it was indeed Dr Alistair Mackenzie of Augusta and Alwoodley fame, one of the best regarded course architects of the ‘Golden Era of 1900 to the 1930s’ who designed the present course in 1924 on the Kent Downs. Though it looks now like a parkland environment it is actually on well-draining chalk and the photos from the 1920s show how open the course was in those days, before the planting of extra trees more recently.

The Club’s leadership is committed to returning the course back to a Mackenzie running design in all its many aspects.

This will take time and money (though fescue/bent greens are comparatively much cheaper to maintain than Poa) and needs to be managed carefully but like all the best leaderships they have recognised that it is worth investing in the best expert advice to be able to obtain the highest quality course in the future.

GB&I’s leading golf tree consultant John Nicholson

Ecologist Mike Edwards who has written with John Nicholson the detailed reasons for change in their 115 page report.

John Nicholson, GB&I’s leading golf tree man along with his expert ecology colleague Mike Edwards were retained and their latest 115 page report gives the members the full reasoning behind how to open up the vistas; how to create the environment to encourage the fine running grasses; how to show off the beautiful veteran trees, many of whom are presently hidden in dense woodland, and return the course to a downland character with the greater biodiversity value of acid grassland.

Their suggestion to open up the woodland areas between holes one and four, to increase the strategy in playing the holes will hopefully fit with the new Design Master Plan now available for members to see in the Clubhouse.

In the past, now retired, Donald Steel (the first person to join FineGolf’s Advisory Panel) has helped tweak the design of the course and his proteges Mackenzie & Ebert have produced a new Design Master Plan for the course, interestingly being able to strengthen the last few holes using land that Mackenzie wanted to use but the Club at that time did not control.

Bunkering on the fourth

Rob wants to upgrade the look of the presently rather stark though well placed bunkering, so it fits more naturally into the landscape. This will take time and needs to be done with thought.

The redesigned second green

Gordon has already redesigned hole two and it will be a feast for Rob to manage and blend all of the brilliant ideas of all of these finest experts, the best in their own professions in GB&I, who each, incredibly importantly, all sing from the ‘fine grasses running game’ hymn sheet, and will work cohesively together.

The big issue of course will be the finance and the pace at which the members want the projects to run.

FineGolf strongly advises the Club leadership to bring the members along using open communication, unlike what happens at so many other golf clubs, where leaderships lack confidence and keep things close to their chests.

The Belmont Estate house

Rob, Paul, the Club leadership and their expert advisers are talking to ‘Natural England’ and the Belmont landlords who both see at present advantage in pursuing these projects.

These projects could help Faversham explode up the rankings and give so much running game enjoyment to members and visiting golfers, who get fed up playing ‘target’ golf on their own ‘boggy’ courses nine months of the year.

It will be the level of ambition of the Club that will determine whether the full change happens and the ability and long term commitment of the Club’s leadership to openly involve the members as to the pace of change.

The drive at the first hole

With already a change to firm greens the course is good fun with an opening par five along a valley with second shot bunkering dominating how to play it.

The Mackenzie bank at the back of the third green.

The third hole has a delightful Mackenzie bank and dip at the back of the green. The grasses on run-offs are being improved and closer cut to give a greater consistency of bounce for the bump-and-run shot.

The fourth though flat and straight is a fine two shotter.

The fifth as Nicholson advises needs to be opened up and bringing the characterful bomb crater more into play.

The sixth is pure quirkiness. Members have real advantage in knowing how to play the bending, downhill and sloping fairway that gives way to a pitch to a typical downland side shelf green with tight bunkering.

These first six holes are played in avenues of pretty rank woodland and when the vistas are opened up with more veteran trees exposed the whole feel of the course will change.

The eleventh typical downland raised green tucked into the side of the hill.

The seventh to twelfth holes are played out and back along a wide valley with presently too many trees in long lines separating the fairways and dark thick woodland on the outside reduces strategy. They are good stretchy holes with one almost 600 yards.

Much debate surrounds the thirteenth par three of some 180 yards to a long and narrow side shelf green with a typical downland ‘dip’ running along the inside of the green against the hill. I struck well a long iron on the perfect line, expecting it to be bounced to the left back pin. It was pin high but in the ‘dip’ having inexplicably moved right! But I achieved my three unlike I am told the majority of players at this hole.

Martin Ebert is proposing to lengthen both the fourteenth and seventeenth which presently are weak straight holes and this will lose the strong dogleg drive at fifteen at a hole with a difficult side slope green that also runs front to back at the top of a hill. Most unusual and not ideal as it is partly blind. Perhaps Ebert’s new fairway may give second shots from a higher, less blind angle.

This strengthening of the course’s finish will hopefully not take too long to be put in place. There is great bunkering at eighteen that forces the player to think strategically on the tee as to which side of the fairway their drive should finish to make the pin approach easier on a sloping green.

A large brown brick clubhouse is a facility appropriate for a move up the rankings and handling more golfers, though towels provided in the showers would be appropriate!

FineGolf recommends strongly to readers to visit this club and enjoy the running golf before the green fees take off as they are bound to do as the rankings catch-up.

Reviewed by Lorne Smith in 2025

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