Woodside Golf Club goes platinum

Woodside G.C goes platinum with Barenbrug.

By Sue Meeken

Woodside Golf Course in Cheshire is typical of many pay-and-play facilities. The privately owned, 9-hole course accommodates a very high number of rounds - approximately 50,000 last year alone - from players of varying levels of ability. This used to take its toll on the greens, but not any more thanks to Woodside's decision to switch to using Barenbrug grass seed.

Last autumn, Head Greenkeeper Richard Corless decided to overseed the greens with Barenbrug's BAR Platinum mixture, which is specially formulated for high wear tolerance combined with disease resistance, drought tolerance and the ability to create sward with a true playing surface.

BAR Platinum's main ingredient is BARGOLD perennial ryegrass, the result of one of Barenbrug's intensive breeding initiatives. BARGOLD is one of a new generation of perennial ryegrasses and has been shown in STRI (Sports Turf Research Institute) trials to be the finest leaved variety available. It is also tolerant of close mowing, down to an astonishing 5mm.

These factors mean BARGOLD can be used confidently in golf green mixtures, as a more robust accompaniment to traditional species, such as fescues, while offering the same top quality playing surface.

BAR Platinum also contains carefully selected cultivars of slender creeping red fescue, chewings fescue and browntop bent. The inclusion of BARGOLD means that the mixture offers the benefits of traditional varieties, along with the robustness and durability of a modern purpose-bred ryegrass cultivar that also has extremely fine leaves.

Woodside Golf Course's greens are proof of the results that can be achieved, now having a fine, dense sward with the true putting surface that players appreciate. Other recommended applications for the versatile BAR Platinum mixture include use on heavily used golf tees and fairways, cricket outfields and ornamental lawns.

For further information please contact Jayne Leyland on 07889 460749 or e-mail jleyland@baruk.co.uk.