The Blairgowrie Golf Club in Perthshire, Scotland, has reported successful results from regular applications of a range of ICL products to its two championship golf courses.

Surrounded by pine and silver birch trees, Blairgowrie’s Lansdowne course provides a challenging but pleasurable test for all levels of golfer. The equally challenging Rosemount course is the older of the two courses and was designed by James Braid.


Head greenkeepers, Brian Scott and Craig Stewart

The men responsible for maintaining the two prestigious golf courses are head greenkeepers, Brian Scott and Craig Stewart who look after Rosemount and Landsdowne respectively. Brian has seven full-time staff working under him with two seasonal workers while Craig has six full-time and two seasonal, but together they share one budget which is largely used for ICL products.

Commenting on why ICL play such a big role in their maintenance procedures, Craig said: “You know exactly what you are going to get from them and we get the backup whenever we need it. If ever we need advice they are always there and straight in to see us."

On hand to deliver his expertise is ICL technical area sales manager Jamie Lees, who has been working with Brian and Craig and visiting the Blairgowrie for the last seven years. It was his advice two years ago which led to an improved surface on the two courses after he recommended the H2Pro Programme.


Landsdowne course

The programme, which consists of using a range of products in the H2Pro range of wetting agents, plays a pivotal role in disease management. By drying out the soil surface but maintaining moisture in the rootzone for healthy plant growth, conditions are less conducive to disease and the plant is more resilient to environmental stresses, including disease attack. It is these kinds of benefits of the H2Pro programme that Brian has been extremely impressed with.

“With the programme we use two different products from the H2Pro range but one holds water through the dry periods and that’s the key. We started with this at the beginning of the summer then moved onto Maximise through the winter. It works excellently in pulling the water away and providing us with a drier surface – I couldn’t be happier with the results.”

For the last six years Brian and Craig have also benefitted from using Syngenta’s Primo Maxx and a wide range of ICL’s popular fertilizers.

“We start the year with Greenmaster Pro-Lite Cold Start 11-5-5 and I get fantastic results from it. For summer I apply Greenmaster Spring & Summer 14-5-10 just to give us some good growth going into the summer and that keeps us going for four months.

"After renovation work I’ll use Greenmaster Pro-Lite Turf Tonic 8-0-0 which works really well,” said Brian.