Award winning ecology at Huntercombe Golf Club

Earlier this year, Huntercombe Golf Club scooped the Operation Pollinator Award by demonstrating how they consistently rank in the top echelons for course quality, providing a widely recognised ecological resource.

Course Manager, Grant Stewart, has ably demonstrated in the past eight years he’s been at Huntercombe that by adopting a multitude of relatively small, but highly achievable, planned actions each season, just how much a course can be transformed and a vast range of biodiversity restored in a relatively short time period. 

It’s an approach that won Grant and the team the prestigious Syngenta Operation Pollinator Award in the Golf Environment Awards. But Grant is adamant that any ecology activities are only ever undertaken where they will also enhance the overall golf course.

“We could never prioritise ecological work at the expense of maintenance and management of the golf course or the playing surface. But where we can take the opportunity to incorporate biodiversity features alongside making improvements in the course, it makes sense to do so.”

“It also makes it more cost effective, and best use of available time, to create something that is a positive benefit for the club and the members.” 

He cites the re-introduction of heather in pockets around the course, in the process of restoration and gorse removal in rough management, is improving definition and providing a new habitat. Having initially bought in heather that had been harvested and repurposed from the creation of essential fire-breaks in moorland, he now has a source of seed that can be collected and spread to supplement resources.

“It is only relatively small areas, but that makes it far more achievable and manageable. We don’t want to totally remove or do away with the gorse, which has an ecological and visual value in itself, but just to keep it in check and not interfering with play.”

That’s an ethos which spreads across all of Grant’s ecological approach. Operation Pollinator wildflower habitats have been created in 10 strategic places between fairways on some holes, but only in areas where they add to the attraction and not interfering with the natural look of the course.

“We’ve sought to use seed mixtures that look in keeping with the natural environment, but also that we know can attract biodiversity and species that should be at home in the area.”

Where a Vredo is hired in to overseed tees, Grant takes the opportunity to use it for seeding wildflower areas at no extra cost.

The team has planted new hedgerows and initiated propagating wild juniper bushes, which are increasingly scarce in the Chiltern Downs, but a necessary part of the local ecosystem.

A 20-year ecological and woodland management plan that Grant had created for the golf course has set out the stall for the realistic aims and targets, as well as proving an important way to engage and gain commitment from the club’s management.  

Working with enthusiasts from the local Upper Thames Butterfly Conservation to identify and catalogue the range of species on the course - including 19 different species in one survey - it was recognised that the rare adonis blue butterfly was absent. They have advised that horseshoe vetch is its favoured food source, with that now added into the wildflower seed mix to provide a suitable habitat to attract it.

“The passion of butterfly specialist, Nick Bowles, has really engaged the members, where they lead butterfly walks around the course and engender great interest in what we are doing with the management for ecology.”

“And it has also inspired the greenkeeping team, where we have a competition between us to photograph and identify the number of butterfly species using the pollinator habitats and around the course.”

“It’s a bit of fun, but also providing a serious scientific purpose by feeding into the official records of Oxfordshire butterfly species. That helps to demonstrate the ecology value we have as a golf course.”

Following on from the butterfly walks, members of the club’s Ecology Group have also joined the Greens Committee, which has helped to raise the profile of the environmental work and helped to integrate it into mainstream course management.

With the rebuilding of golf tees on the 3rd hole, for example, there was greater understanding for the rationale and effort in creating chalk scrapes alongside during the construction phase – while the machines and manpower were on site. “Although they will take more time to naturalise than simply resowing grass, the members appreciate what we are aiming to do in creating a new habitat feature, and support for what we’re doing.”

But there is certainly no blank cheque book for environmental work. Grant highlights that all initiatives are fully costed for both greenkeepers’ time and investment. And he highlights there are some real thrifty cost saving measures that can be used, such as gathering and drying seed from existing cowslips and yellow rattle in wildflower areas, which would both be expensive additions into seed mixtures for new habitat creation on tee banks and backs of bunkers, for example.

Grass pots present a unique challenge for golfers and a special environment for ecology.

He also reinforces the focus on protecting the ecological value that they already have at Huntercombe. Some of the most incredible features are large ant hills of yellow meadow ants that top off many of the unique naturalised grass pot bunkers around the course. The fearsomely deep hollows, over 100 in number that challenge players, were an original feature instigated by Huntercombe’s famous designer, and former owner, Willie Park Jnr.

Whilst a small proportion of members had recently voiced a request to flatten off the ant hills, they have a valuable role in bringing up acidified soil to the surface that is perfect for the rare chalk hill blue butterfly, along with some of the habitat specific grassland wildflowers, including purple wild thyme, ladies bedstraw and pyramidal orchids.

“The areas also support harebells that are so important for pollinators. We have taken a bit of effort to ensure the greenkeeping team are aware of them, to take extra care with strimming pot faces, for example, to avoid damaging the ant hills or the flower species we want to encourage,” he adds. “It hugely adds to the uniqueness of the course and, once their ecological value has been explained, players are quite happy to see them there.”

Additionally, removing a deep layer of leaf litter in the woods, accumulated from years of blowing leaves from the course by the previous greenkeeping team, has allowed the bluebell bulbs smothered below to bloom, providing an important source of early pollen and nectar for bees. 

“Clearing out the thick scrub at the base of the woodlands has allowed the bluebells to come back as a wonderful show appreciated by golfers and walkers on footpaths through the course. But it has also opened-up airflow across the fairways and greens, which has helped to dry them out and lower disease pressure, as part of our ITM approach,” adds Grant.

The woods are also home to a resident hedgehog population picked up locally by Grant and the team, which cause no issues for golf but do have an effect in consuming worms and other pests.

Such is the positive engagement with members that an appeal for support to put up bird boxes generated funding for over 30 boxes within hours. Now, Grant plans to use the Operation Pollinator Award winnings to fund owl boxes in woodland around the course. 

“We aim to look at how we can get a balance with everything we do that can benefit both biodiversity and our course management and where they can coexist comfortably alongside each other.”

Having catalogued and pictured the diversity of insect, plant and bird species from around the course, the team decided to put together a definitive ecology guidebook ‘Huntercombe Guide to nature on our course’.

“As a way of communicating what we have achieved and what we want to do, the guide has proved extremely popular with both members and visitors. It is a real talking point about the course and attracted other golfers to want to play here,” says Grant. Which is where golf and ecological management can be a win, win for players and the environment. 

Grant’s Top Tips

• Take advantage of course improvement works to bolt on environmental features
• Protect what you have and enhance existing ecology assets
• Work with local ecology groups and specialists
• Make a long-term plan and objectives
• Inform members what you’re doing and why
• Lots of simple little things add up to a hugely more diverse environment

New species

The red kite is the adopted emblem of Huntercombe Golf Club, nestled quietly in the Chiltern hills of Oxfordshire. Brought close to extinction by persecution and habitat loss, the fact these majestic top-tier birds of prey now circle freely above the golf course players, feed among its wildflower habitats and nest atop tall oaks in its woodland is testament to the positive recovery of nature actively promoted by course manager, Grant Stewart, and his team.

And it’s not the only instance. Thanks to their work, wildflowers now proliferate around the course and attract greater biodiversity and new species that are now at home in the array of habitats they have created.

 

Top tips to win

The Golf Environment Awards provide a great opportunity for greenkeepers and the golf industry to showcase the immense ecological resource that has been created, advocates STRI Senior Turf Agronomist and GEA judge, Stella Rixon (pictured below).

“You should take part in the Awards because nature really engages people. It’s a good news story for you, your team and your club,” she adds.

Her advice for golf courses thinking of entering the GEA is to engage with a specialist or local enthusiast that can help to identify and quantify what you already have on the site, and set out what you are aiming to achieve.

“That can really help to show the judges you have a clear plan; even if you are not at the end point, we can see what you are doing and why.”

She also urges anyone undertaking environmental work to document and photograph the process of before and after. “It is hugely rewarding to look back and see what can be achieved in a relatively short period of time.”

“Photographs are a great storyteller to engage members and demonstrate enhancements on their behalf, as well as a communication tool for use by the club.”

“They are also invaluable support for the GEA submission and to help in the judging process.”