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| Course no dump with Gwazae |
By Richard Rennie
 An old rubbish dump site overlain with sticky white clay and the remains of a swamp doesn’t make a green keeper’s job any easier to establish a good golf course.
However this was the challenge facing ex British green keeper Dean Roberts when he took up his job at Renner Park golf course near Tauranga, Bay of Plenty, on arriving in New Zealand.
The nine hole fee paying course caters largely to weekend amateurs and social players. It fills a handy niche among the Bay of Plenty region’s extensive choice of courses.
Coming to Renner Park from the more genteel nature of a well established course in the UK Cotswolds, Dean could see the great opportunity to develop an interesting course almost from scratch.
Challenging soil profile for course
Renner Park is in a fast growing region and could capitalise on its central location and the appeal nine holes hold for anyone starting off in the game.
Once the site of a city dump, the course has also been overlain with white clay off a city building site. This has created an artificial pan of varying depths around the course.
Part of the course is also a flood plain on four fairways.
Over the last four years these had suffered from the constant compaction of being mown three times a week, and from trucks running over it during construction.
“It had no aeration at all and you could see this in how much longer the water was taking to drain away. Last winter the water hardly drained away at all.”
Dean found even mole draining the fairways had little effect. It was not until he trialled the Gwazae ground probe aerator with local operator Grant Umbers that he could make any difference to the extensive ponding.
Gwazae blasts subsoil open
With its high pressure blast of air delivered into the dense subsoil layer, the Gwazae was able to crack open the profile, providing a passage for the surface water to percolate down to the mole drains installed earlier.
“After we had treated the fairways with the Gwazae, the first heavy rain one morning afterwards was coming out of the moles by the afternoon.”
Dean admits he is something of a sceptic when approached with new equipment to trial on greens. His time in the UK saw many devices presented, but despite his scepticism he was always keen to give them a go.
“I don’t impress easily, but this certainly got my attention by the rate that the water drained away. After about an hour, much of it was gone when before it may have hung around for a day.”
Dean hopes running the Gwazae over the white clay pan on the course early in summer will help crack it open, ultimately fracturing it across the whole soil profile to improve drainage and aeration.
Low level intrusion in sensitive site
The old dump has its own unique challenges, containing endless amounts of material that cannot be disturbed.
The Gwazae has proven an ideal machine to aerate with minimal disruption to what may lie below, in contrast to mole draining which pulls a plug through the soil profile.
Up on top the minimal surface disruption is also appreciated.
“We have a lot of kikuyu grass here which does not like being wet and cold, and you notice the improvement in the areas where the Gwazae has been, growth is better, without any marks being left on the surface of the fairway which is vital.”
Gwazae suits rainfall challenges
The Bay of Plenty is characterised by what the Met Service categorises as intense rainfall events, with almost tropical down pours often delivering rainfall at rates up to 20mm an hour.
This can be a nightmare challenge for drainage on amenity and playing fields, making the low level intrusion of Gwazae treatment a quick and simple means of alleviating ponding and surface flooding.
Dean is looking forward to this winter to see how long lasting the effects of the Gwazae treatment have been, and sees no reason for the aeration to have lost its effectiveness.
“I have even been tempted to leave part of the course un-treated to show how effective it has been.”
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| GWAZAE at Renner Park Golf |
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