Page 104 - Golf World (February 2020)

The 4th, the first history, beauty, challenge, excitement and, above all, fun.
short hole at And yet, after surviving the winds, dunes and
Machrihanish, is
called ‘Jura’ undulations of Machrihanish, it comes as something of
after the tiny a shock to discover that raw and rugged test may, in fact,
island that
sits to the west have been watered down.
of Kintyre. In The Spirit of St Andrews, written in the 1930s,
Alister MacKenzie laments a taming of Old Tom
Morris’ original holes. Some of the natural greens
were so undulating that at times one had to putt 20 or
30 yards round to lay dead at a hole only five yards away,
he wrote. These greens have all gone and today one loses
thejoyofoutwittinganopponentbymakingspectacular
putts of this description. And in an effort to eliminate
unfairness, many of the natural hazards have been
destroyed, undulations shaved off and alternate routes to
holes done away with, and the interest and strategy of the
course has disappeared.
If MacKenzie’s observations are to be believed, one can
only goggle at just how tumultuous Machrihanish may
once have been. Certainly there are enough swells and
swales today to satisfy even the fussiest links purists.
Nevertheless, MacKenzie’s comments do raise the
question of just how much of the great man’s original
design remains in place. Certainly JH Taylor made some
modifications in 1914 and further alterations were made
by Sir Guy Campbell some three decades later. But it is
generally accepted that no major earth-moving was
performed by either. Given Scotland’s respect for the
Grand Old Man and the enduring splendour of the
landscape and the golfing experience, this is perhaps an
avenue that does not need to be explored.
Dressed to impress
So answer this: what has golf course top-dressing got in
104 Golf World February 2020 | golfworldtop100.com
‘It comes as something
of a shock to discover
that raw and rugged
test may, in fact, have
been watered down’
common with Viagra, Corn Flakes and LSD? The
somewhatanticlimacticansweristheywerealldiscovered
by accident. According to legend, Old Tom Morris
spilled a barrowful of sand onto the 10th green at
Prestwick shortly after he laid out its original 12-hole
course. The next spring he was amazed to find the sand
replaced by a silky sward. It is, then, a rather delicious
coincidence that, 150 years later, the same treatment is
saving his Kintyre classic.
“It is fair to say we were starting to get more negative
comments about the condition of the course,” admits
Ross. “We even had one society request discounted green
fees because they were so disappointed with it. The
greens were having quite a lot of coring and they were
bumpy and slow, with lots of wee indentations.”
The club quickly took action, installing a new
irrigation system and appointing Craig Barr, greenkeeper
at neighbouring Machrihanish Dunes, in August 2018.
“We’ve gone back to the way things were done before
artificial fertilisers,” Barr informs. “That’s included
straightforward top-dressing with sand, which helps the
bacteria in the ground, but also using organic compost
tea brews to improve the roots and soil. So far, it’s