Playing competitions in early spring is nothing but a slog and just sets up your greenkeepers for failure, says Steve Carroll.
This article is part of GCMA Insights – topical content for golf industry professionals, discussing the things that matter to those who work in golf clubs.
Turf squelches as you walk through it. Parts of fairways are nothing but bare ground, save for the aeration holes trying to force some drainage into the still sodden surfaces.
Away from some of the main playing areas it looks like a music festival has just left town. Deep footprints are gouged. The tracks of trolleys reveal more temporary scars.
This winter has been one of the wettest since records began nearly 200 years ago. If you live in the West Midlands, or Cornwall, or Leicestershire, it’s the wettest you’ve ever seen.
If you’re in southern England, or Northern Ireland, it’s the wettest in a decade. But this is no longer unusual. And unless you’re lucky enough to play at a links course, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
We saw more rain in the winter of 2023 than we had in any of the previous 40 years. In 2024, it was severe flooding that closed courses.
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It won’t take long to recover once the temperatures rise, people tell me. But I’m looking right now at a weather forecast that’s predicting rain on eight of the next 14 days.
I think greenkeepers all over the UK have once again performed wonders just to get our courses open at all over the last couple of months.
But they are not miracle workers. There is only so much they can do even when the temperatures start to turn.
It’s getting more and more difficult to produce the sort of surfaces we would like when the traditional golf competition season is meant to get under way. It is getting under way very soon.
There will barely be a club that doesn’t have something scheduled for the first weekend in April. I know of many that kick off at the end of March. Is it just me that thinks we are not ready for it?
Yes, we’ve still got preferred lies and we’ll probably extend them into May. Yes, we can bring in ground under repair – and other temporary rules – for the worst affected areas.
But we can’t make the ball run any further. And if golfers have been playing a shorter winter layout for the last few months, they are going to get a big shock when that course has hundreds of yards added to it very soon.
This isn’t a new phenomenon by any means. “Quite foolishly we still seem obsessed with getting ready for a March opening day, or definitely by the first of April,” Jim Croxton, chief executive of the British & International Golf Greenkeepers’ Association told The Herald in Scotland this time last year.
“My personal view is that I don’t think the golf season really arrives until at least Easter and probably more into May.
“But unfortunately clubs are determined to have that first medal of the year on that first weekend of April, or whatever it may be, and very often the course is not quite ready because we have had a cold spring, and we may not have even finished some of the winter work because of all these other difficulties.”
What’s changed in the ensuing 12 months? If anything, it feels like we’re in a worse spot now than we were in 2025.
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I reckon we need to stop playing competitions altogether in April. There has to be some common sense applied in a bleak British winter.
So why don’t we just move the season a few weeks to start at the beginning of May?
Your course manager will be delighted. Why do they need to be put under so much stress to try and hit an impossible meteorological deadline?
They will love that extra four and a bit weeks. It’s 30 more days where everything gets a little warmer and the days get longer. 30 days where aerated greens and surroundings knit into smoother putting surfaces. 30 days where saturated ground can dry out before tournament shots are hit in anger.
I’ve travelled the country for a decade now talking to greenkeepers and asking them about the scheduling of some of their club’s big early season events.
Many have said that course conditions, either because of a winter that has refused to leave or an early spring that’s yet to truly fire, aren’t exactly as they would want.
And, if we’re honest with each other, they’re not as we want either.
So the question is: if it’s so hard, why hold those competitions so early at all? Tradition? Prestige?
We don’t need to worry about losing time. These days October is a virtual extension of summer but lots of clubs have already packed the golf competition tees away before the month has really begun.
If your club doesn’t do it already, why not utilise all of it in a glorious last tribute to the year? The conditions are still on our side – at least until the clocks go back.
If we can’t, careful scheduling can still mean the only casualties will be the odd midweek medal and will anyone be so bereft about that?
It’s possible I’m viewing this through through rose-tinted spectacles, but it feels to me like the best golf of the year can now arrive later in the calendar.
We’ve got to start taking advantage of it.
This article is part of GCMA Insights – topical content for golf industry professionals, discussing the things that matter to those who work in golf clubs.
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