Change at Hollinwell

It is with some relief that FineGolf can report that after recent changes in leadership, Hollinwell seems to have balanced itself and continues to be a beacon of sense to inland clubs.

FineGolf readers will know that FineGolf has ventured in recent times into speaking about the sensitive and sometimes fraught issue of leadership in Golf and what happened at Hollinwell is a fascinating story from which we can all learn as well as celebrating one of the finest greenkeepers.

We need to set the scene when 42 years ago Phil Stain started as a greenkeeper at Hollinwell and soon into the noughties, around the time when one of Britain’s best ever secretaries Ian Symington had been appointed at Hollinwell, Phil became Head Greenkeeper.

It was at a time when the Club, influenced by Ian McLachlan, was starting on a programme of heathland regeneration from the tree dominated parkland it had unfortunately been allowed to become.

We see around London the famous Surrey and Berkshire heathland courses are also going through a programme of heathland regeneration and taking out trees, gorse and rhododendrons and encouraging the heather.

Nevertheless, though they may occasionally talk about wanting fine grasses, advised usually by the STRI who have part morphed into The R&A agronomists, they still have soft annual meadow grass (Poa annua) dominant ‘target’ greens. There are only a few exceptions where some perennial browntop bent grass gives some firmness to their greens, without the use of a high tonnage of scarce sand that Poa needs for short term firmness.

By the late noughties the leadership at Hollinwell decided that they wanted the full agronomic heathland regeneration with a return to firm, running-game conditions and leave behind the target-golf of its badly diseased annual meadow grass (Poa annua) greens with a change to the fine perennial grasses of Browntop bent and fescues.

To help achieve this they retained in 2010 the agronomist/greenkeeping consultant Gordon Irvine MG to help advise on how to implement a long term Jim Arthur conservationist programme.

Golfers are instinctively against change

While many golfers have an opinion about how courses should be presented for their own enjoyment, very few have any interest in grasses. But I have never met a golfer who does not want to be proud of the condition of their own course and naturally are usually in denial for the need for change.

This was inevitably the situation the Hollinwell course leadership found and they had an uphill task in all aspects of how the club was run with regard to the course.

It is well worth watching the tough Chair of Green between 2009 and 2016 speaking at the FineGolf ‘Running Golf Day’ at Hollinwell in 2017 on YouTube

It is 47 minutes of truth where he goes into the details of the ups and downs and the management and attitude changes they had to make. At 17 minutes in, he confirms that it was continuous educating of the membership that was the key to the club leadership’s success in changing the course condition, that has subsequently brought Open Championship Final Qualifying to the club and an acceleration up the ranking tables, along with increased green fees from very happy visitors.

Eighteen months wasted

Phil Stain admitted to me, when he was driving us around the course in the early 2010s, that he unfortunately had wasted the first 18 months of Gordon’s advice about how to make the change to fine grasses, by just not believing in and committing to his programme.

Phil Stain was a product of Jim Arthur and managed his greens with minimum water and fertiliser, no fungicides were used for nine years, just relying on sulphate of iron and with the organic matter low, the greens were hard and sparse.

His problems he says became the timing of maintenance operations and the height of cuts.

Greenkeeping is competitive

Local courses and the general industry were going through a fashion for faster putting speed as the determinant of what golfers wanted and Phil was forced into an ever decreasing cut height that drove out the perennial fine grasses, with the annual meadow grass (Poa annua) that survives a low cut down to even 2mm, replacing it.

As the Poa was pushed to destruction, no amount of overseeding could improve the surface quality and they were on a downward spiral.

Some will remember Hunstanton’s Poa greens literally dying from over-stress, before the Club retained Gordon Irvine to help turn them round to healthy fine perennial grasses cut at 5mm and running at 9.5′ the ideal speed for recreational golf.

Amazingly to Phil when Gordon arrived, he increased the feeding and watering to recover the grass (poa) as they needed a surface on which to play golf. For the first 18 months they did everything he was against, and he struggled with this.

The creation of a course played “in the heath”

Phil had always wanted to create a course played “in the heath” and it helped him to see the longer game by spending some days at Askernish, the abandoned golf course on the Outer Hebrides which Gordon had discovered and coordinated its resurection with the creation of a true, natural, fescue greens agronomy.

Phil committed fully to Gordon’s conservationist programme and the two of them have been joined at the hip ever since in bringing this course to an ever improving fine grasses condition that has allowed FineGolf to describe Hollinwell as the finest inland running-golf course in GB&I.

They explained to the Club that it was all about timing. There is no point doing jobs unless they were done at the correct time. Golfing fixtures needed to be set around maintenance, not maintenance around fixtures. Seeding done in early autumn, not early winter (after the medal finals). Cut height needed to remain at 4mm or above, and they had to stop chasing pace.

Phil says: “That once we had a surface, water and fertilisers were slowly withdrawn, and as the poa was pushed out, the fine grasses were now able to survive. This has been a long and painful journey, but ultimately very rewarding. Without Gordon’s support, I am under no illusion; by sticking to my traditional beliefs, I would have ultimately lost my job. Thankfully his timely intervention saved not only my career but also allowed me to achieve what he believes to be one of very few inland fine grass conversions, and allows me to now leave the industry with my head held high. There is no doubt, despite what others may say, fine grass is achievable, and is the only long-term sustainable way forward.”

Though Gordon Irvine is now a good friend he never talks about his client matters to anybody but the client and it is only recently from Phil that I have discovered that I completely misunderstood the reason behind Phil’s wasted 18 months, assuming the opposite of what actually happened!

It is a story of realism and playing the long game and is one of the reasons why Gordon Irvine has been so successful in helping change Poa to fine grasses at so many inland and seaside clubs.

Changes to Chair of Green

Let me divert for a moment and say that problems arise quite often when a new Chair of Green is appointed. They usually need educating to understand the course policy and that their primary role is to defend the greenkeeping team and obtain a sufficient budget, rather than implementing new pet ideas.

Most clubs have got rid of the yearly captain having influence over course policy but we have seen some wrong turnings at clubs when the Chair of Green changes usually after a cycle of three years, just as they are fully understanding their role!

There are lots of examples where longer tenures have given clubs real advantage. Charles Ambrose at Worplesdon between the two world wars is an example that is discussed in the recently published FineGolf review of Worplesdon.

It is an area of golf club constitutional change that needs consideration. Vital for consistency is that course policy is clearly set down in a document agreed at an AGM of members, and uses words and phrases like: firm perennial fine grasses; the running game; the three dimensional rather than the two dimensional game; in setting out objectives.

So, what has happened at hollinwell?

At a members meeting the Chair of Green, who was fully committed to pursuing a fine grasses policy, was voted out. From such acorns do oak trees grow.

When FineGolf also heard that Phil Stain, now one of GB&I’s finest ‘fine grasses’ greenkeepers, who had the courage to create an environment for ‘running-golf’ and who is a member of FineGolf’s Pantheon of the finest greenkeepers, as well GB&I’s Conservation Greenkeeper of the year in 2019, had decided to retire early, alarm bells were ringing for the future of the right courses policy at Hollinwell and Gordon Irvine’s vital role seemed to also be at risk.

It is one thing to retain the correct professionals to implement a conservationist policy to create firm running-golf course conditions but to expect the majority of golfers to appreciate the technical aspects of this is naïve. They need to be reminded repeatedly that their enjoyment of firm turf and the running game comes from the never ending battle against annual meadow grass (Poa annua) getting in, made more difficult when there are always changes in the GB&I weather.

It is the easiest of decisions for those who do not really want to take responsibility, to invite The R&A agronomists in. That brand is so strong in golfers minds that the blame for something then going wrong is unlikely to come back onto the official who invited The R&A in.

Relief

Therefore, it is with enormous relief that FineGolf can report that the feared change in course agronomic policy was misplaced.

The new Chair of Green has stated to FineGolf : “It has been the policy of all committees over many years to leave the management of the course entirely to Phil and his team, with input from Gordon Irvine. There was never any intention to change that approach and indeed nothing has changed, the course manager is in total charge and Gordon Irvine’s ongoing role was never in doubt”.

The new leadership at Hollinwell has relied on Gordon’s advice throughout the appointment process for the new course manager and though there were some exceptionally able greenkeepers on the shortlist, it was the unanimous decision to appoint Phil Stain’s deputy to the role, thereby confirming no change in agronomic policy.

Gordon is retained and will increase his involvement while Shaun Bullin gets his feet under the table and as the new club leadership gains experience it is expected that the course at Hollinwell will continue to go from strength to strength.

Educating the membership still at the forefront of Hollinwell strategy

To put behind them any idea that the leadership had become complacent to the need to continue educating the membership, the club has produced an eight minute podcast of an interview with Gordon Irvine about Hollinwell course policy.

He speaks positively about how the fine grass conditions are now so well embedded that they sailed through the hot spells in 2018 and 2022 without losing any grass cover (Ed. unlike many London heathland courses) and how the members appreciate how the traditional running game, born on the links and now enjoyed again at Hollinwell, gives bounce and sometimes unfairness in what FineGolf calls the ‘3-dimensional’ game. The podcast has been published and circulated among the membership and is available for wider public viewing below.

Congratulations to Phil Stain, his legacy is assured

So, we can happily thank Phil for giving us a shining example of how an inland course can achieve firm turf and give us the enjoyment of the true 3-dimensional running game. FineGolf wishes him a long and happy retirement.