Ecosol can name 44% of the top golf courses in Europe among our clients!
We’ve been having fun analysing the recently published list of Top 100 great golf courses worldwide-and we’ve worked on almost 20% of them!
St Andrews Old Course, voted Number 1 in the listing, was one of our first clients 12 years ago with Deep Drill. Other notable performers also in our customer portfolio include Turnberry at 12th,Sunningdale Old at 22nd, Carnoustie at 24th, Royal St George’s at 27th, Portmarnock Ireland at 36th, Gleneagles at 37th, Swinley Forest at 40th, Walton Heath Old at 51st, Sunningdale New at 53rd, Woodhall Spa at 62nd, Royal Cinque Ports at 64th and Noordwijk, Netherlands at 68th. Many of the Top 100 were in the USA, some in Australasia but globally, the UK and Ireland was the winner with 42 % of the Top 100 (18% of them in Scotland), compared with 41% in the US.
The Top 100 was selected by golf architects but the criteria were not limited to design. The architects shared their views on what makes a golf course great – location and design are obviously important - but they also considered quality and diversity of playing surface. “Location dictates the playing surface or what lies beneath,” says architect David McLay Kidd in Golf Course Architecture Magazine. More than 75% of the Top 100 were built over 50 years ago, so grounds staff and contractors like us must be doing something right. “Great golf courses are partly a product of ageing, much like wine. That ageing results in tweaking to correct flaws and make strong points stronger,” says architect Tripp Davis.
“A truly great course,” says architect and golfer Steve Smyers, “should test the most talented in the game.” The top courses are those that have successfully blended landscape, design and surface conditions to allow a variety of shots to be played with every golf club in the bag, in an enjoyable setting. These architects’ comments on the top courses are, says the magazine, “a reminder that for the vast majority of golfers, the sport is a recreation, a pleasure, a pastime…that they would do all the time if they could.”
Winning course, St Andrews Old, first called in Ecosol Turfcare in 2001 with our Deep Drill aerator which was able to penetrate to a depth of 18in, deeper than any other piece of kit. Subsequently, we visited with the Drill n Fill aerator in an equally successful operation. St Andrews has hosted golf for 600 years and the current 18 hole Old Course is over 100 years old. During that time it has challenged and delighted millions and reassuringly, it beat 99 other fantastic courses in the Top 100.
