POLO
Courses for
As course superintendent Phil Hill writes, the recent addition of a polo field to the Barnbougle stable is paying dividends for the Tasmanian golfing mecca.
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t has now been five years since a fairly useless five hectare paddock was sprayed and planted out with the aim of holding a couple of social polo events on the fringes of the Barnbougle Lost Farm golf course. Since converting this area to Legend couchgrass, which is not widely used in the Apple Isle because of our cool climate in winter, we have held five very successful polo tournaments, with the most recent held on 19 January 2019 which proved to be another resounding success. Having only ever dealt with cool-season grasses in my 39 years of turf management, it has been a very rewarding and learning experience to prepare a different surface to a high level and also observing and managing a completely different beast than the fescue surfaces we generally maintain across both Barnbougle Dunes and Barnbougle Lost Farm. The pitch was initially row-planted back in January 2014 with Legend sprigs sourced from StrathAyr’s Richmond (Tas) farm. Despite being told to expect just 50 per cent coverage by winter, we were amazed that come May coverage was around 90 per cent.
AUSTRALIAN TURFGRASS MANAGEMENT 21.1
We successful hosted our first polo event the following January and it has since become a regular event on the Tasmanian sporting calendar. With the pitch now well established, maintenance for each year’s event generally starts after we have had a couple of frosts in late April/early May. As we start to see the Legend going into dormancy, it is sprayed with glyphosate at 600ml/ha which provides very effective knockdown of all undesirable plants in the coming weeks. As winter comes and goes and the Legend starts to show some sort of life as it comes out of dormancy in early October, we watch with anticipation that there has been no phytotoxicity. Thus far we have been fortunate enough to come through unscathed each season. As soil temperatures rise above 14 degrees we make one application of Monument for a final clean-up of any undesirable grasses. The mowing regime then begins with some assistance from other nearby turf establishments requiring our clippings for turf wickets etc. Mowing intensity is fairly relaxed until about month out from the event which