Golf Business News – Beau Desert's sustainability mission is felt through landscaping and equipment

In his 31 years at Beau Desert Golf Club in Staffordshire, Course Manager Steve Mucklow has overseen many changes, but few have been on the scale of the regeneration of the landscape he and his team are working on.

Sustainability – in every sense of the word – is the goal and Steve, along with Head Greenkeeper Luke Sheldon, are seeing the fruits of their labor.

The recent delivery of the first phase of new John Deere machines marks the beginning of a change in the direction of the machine fleet that will help to more effectively meet the production goals the team has set for itself.

“The course has changed a lot in the last five years because of all the work we've done in reviving the hot spots,” said Steve. “What we are about is sustainability and we have been able to get resources to develop and improve the golf course. That includes equipment and John Deere on board which is a big part of us going forward. “

Throughout the course there is evidence of the work the team has done to maintain a Top 100 golf course while allowing the natural environment to flourish around it. It was Steve who pushed football forward in the sustainability campaign, and the whole club is now driving the drive to make the 170-hectare course as sustainable as possible.

Steve says: “One thing we needed to do after the best 100 years was to look at redeveloping the course and bringing it into the modern age. “But for us it is important to maintain the culture of the course. The way we've recreated the holes is the traditional way – everything we've used wisely is locally sourced to keep everything sustainable and natural.”

“Beau Desert has not been written about in many magazines or advertised a lot,” said Luka. “It's one of those lessons you have to go out and play and experience for yourself, when people come to play they come back.”

Steve demonstrates the typical Fowler course design and heathland appeal. He says: “Certainly from the mid-1970s, fueled by TV, the trend was greens and stripes, fast greens, acceptable, developed in the style of the Masters – golf is all over the place now, the 'running game' is back. focus, in terms of fashion, suits us well here at Beau. “

So far, the Beau Desert team has completed the restoration of three holes, the first, fifth and 18th, and their goal is to have the course fully restored by 2030. The team not only has a development template in place, but also Heathland. and the Woodland management program and the funded Farming in Protective Landscapes program.

The 650 members of the group have all been told openly about each step of the restoration, which the members are happy with so far. In recent years, as the club population has become smaller and the club has become more active, the percentage of play is much higher, with approximately 40,000 rounds of golf played per year. As the course gets very busy, the greens team goes out to prepare the course before the 8am tee time.

John Deere's innovative hybrid technology allows the Beau Desert team to work more efficiently and more stably. So far this year the team has received seven new additions to its fleet, including a 2750 E-Cut mower, a 7500 E-Cut for fairways, two walk-backs and an 8800A for cutting the perimeter. There are advanced plans to order more equipment in the near future.

“What attracted us to these machines was the ability to reduce idling times, save fuel, and reduce gas emissions, all of which you can track with the machines,” said Luke.

Using carbon emissions data from cutters and using drones to count how many trees are on the road, the team can calculate their journey towards carbon neutrality.

“So, for example, if fairway mowers emit 20 hours worth of emissions, we can calculate the carbon offset to be about 12 mature trees – how many trees would it take to cancel the carbon emissions,” said Luke.

He says the grounds team knew they wanted to invest in John Deere equipment shortly after demolishing it. “When we unloaded the equipment, we found that the replacement of our old equipment to Deere is easy as it is easy to understand and use,” said Luke. “Furthermore, it was not just a matter of the machines being abandoned in the group and left for observation, there was always background information (from John Deere dealer Farol), we were given time to get used to the machines as they were. well. Before we made the transition properly, the guys had a really good idea of ​​what they were using, and achieving efficiency didn't contribute much.”

As they preach sustainability, Luke and Steve felt that their equipment should be in line with their philosophy. Electric drive on the cutting reels eliminates dangerous hydraulic leaks while delivering a consistent cut. Steve believes that putting time and effort into making courses sustainable is the most important part of it all.

“It's a long process,” Steve said. “We started investing 10 years ago but with the improved budget we have increased the level in the last five to six years. I have been able to learn a lot about sustainability at work, but I have also been lucky as I have met good people who understand ecology and heatland nature. We have learned a lot ourselves, improving agronomics while maintaining standards is key.”

Looking to the future, and continuing with the redevelopment of the course, Steve is working on trying to get the next grant to improve the hot spot.

“We also have a program to improve the seventh hole in October, everything is going well, and the next two stages,” said Steve.

The grant will cover the forest and regeneration work and the development will continue until now.