Following on from my recent article in TurfPro about coping with the hot, stressful weather, I thought I would follow that up with a visit to a golf course to see how an old friend of mine coped with the extreme warm weather that we experienced this summer.

Dave Colins is the head greenkeeper at the Lickey Hills Golf Club, near Birmingham.

Lickey Hills Golf Club, is situated within Lickey Hills Country Park and is known for its challenging 18-hole, 69 par course, set amidst the dramatic landscape of the Lickey Hills.

The well maintained 18-hole course offers an inviting challenge for golfers of all skill levels, framed by lush woodland, scenic fairways and panoramic views stretching across the Midlands.

The Lickey Hills Golf course is one of six within the suburbs of Birmingham the others being Boldmere, Cocks Moors Woods, Harborne Church Farm, Hatchford Brook, and Pype Hayes.

Although all these courses belong to Birmingham council, they are run and managed by Mytime Active. Dave has been at the Lickeys GC for 29 years and has an experienced team of three fulltime greenkeepers and one part timer.

With limited resources and a tight annual budget, each year is a challenge for Dave and his staff. In any normal year, the course tends to be a grass factory, requiring constant mowing of greens, tees, fairways and roughs. These ongoing mowing regimes take up a lot of the staff’s time. However, this year has been significantly different.

The extreme long spell of dry, hot weather that started in early spring has resulted in the soils drying out substantially, forcing grass growth to slow down, thus reducing the cutting frequencies dramatically. The course has a very old pop-up watering system, which in itself brings along some problems of inconsistent watering and missed areas, plus breakdowns resulting in the need for hand watering.

The time saved from not having to cut grass this summer has allowed more time to be spent keeping the greens alive. A programme of scarifying / verticutting, vertidraining and top dressing have helped keep the greens in good condition, however a few exposed greens have suffered from the heat and hot weather. This brings on hydrophobic conditions and areas prone to browning / dying off.

Dave is confident that come September when he carries out his end of season renovations, he will see the greens recover. Most are soil pushed up greens.

One of Dave’s biggest challenges has been coping with the constant vandalism they suffer from people riding bikes on the greens. Last winter, he had 30 plus acts of vandalism to contend with.

Unfortunately, Lickey Hills has always been victim to vandalism. The course is a council owned public right of way which makes it difficult for Dave and his team to reduce the number of times this is happening. In 2024 they had five greens vandalised; one of which was on Christmas Eve. The following March he had another six greens damaged. Some of them were superficial damage and Dave was able to rescue them, however, a couple of them were a lot worse. Generally, the work required to repair the greens centres on clearing up the debris, top dressing and overseeding the damaged areas. In some cases, they must be returfed.

As for machinery, he uses Baroness mowers for greens, tees and fairways. Being a hilly course and on clay, come winter some of the lower lying fairways often get very wet, with Dave having to resort to a mole ploughing exercise to help drain water away. An old-fashioned practise, but it works effectively at the Lickeys GC.

When not working at the golf club, Dave is regularly found working on matchdays at Aston Villa Football Club. A hobby he has been doing for twenty plus years.

Dave is also a BIGGA member and over the years has had the opportunity to work at some major golfing events - the most recent one being the 151st Open event at Royal Liverpool where Dave was one of 46 greenkeepers who were invited to work at the championships.

Dave believes these experiences only help build up the knowledge and develop confidence in your own abilities - that can be used to improve the maintenance opportunities at your own golf club.

It goes without saying that the Lickey’s Golf Club is in in good hands. Let’s hope Dave can see out his career at his beloved club and hopefully see the council and Mytime Active continue to invest in this unique public golfing facility.