Knotty Hill Golf Centre has adopted a different way of thinking when it comes to personnel and machines, and the 2.75 meter IMANTS ShockWave fits their ethos perfectly.
You’d be forgiven for thinking an army of men would be spread across the 660-acre site that offers 54-holes of golf, 27 of those being foot-golf – a sport that is seeing a continuing surge in popularity.
However, including owner and proprietor Ashley Craggs, there are only three other staff who work on the course. Instead, they opt for larger machines that can cover the course quickly, but importantly, there is no compromise on quality.
Because they are a large pay to play facility with high numbers through the door compaction on the fairways became an issue, and this lead Ashley to upgrade on his smaller ShockWave.
He said: “I came across the ShockWave two years ago. I bought a smaller one which was a 2.1-meter model, and I started using it on my greens and tees, and the result is that all the compaction has been taken out of the greens, it’s really helped the water drain away in the winter and it improved root growth.
“The ShockWave is an absolute dream, it’s the best aerating machine that we’ve had. It’s all simple and easy to use, you can alter the depth just by the pull of a lever in a tractor for different land work that you’re doing.
“I then saw the bigger machine advertised so we decided to have a look at the 2.75-meter, and it’s an ideal machine for doing our 54 fairways because it’s big and wide. We got it in August 2016 after a demo because it ticked all the boxes.
“The ShockWave also requires less maintenance than other aeration machines. We used another option that had a lot of moving components which required a lot of looking after. On a ShockWave, you’ve only got the one main drive, and that hardly needs any maintenance, and the blades are easy to change – so the whole thing is a lot easier to look after.”
Ashley sees clear merits in using the machine and has seen improvements on all areas of the course it’s been operated on. He and his staff have tried to push an iron bar into an area where it wasn’t used and only managed to reach two inches in depth. The area that the ShockWave had worked on went down to ten inches.
The recovery time after use is also an impressive factor, especially when held up against alternative methods. Play is resumed immediately following treatment and customers on the Knotty Hill courses would be oblivious to any minor surface slits within a few weeks.
Throughout September the smaller ShockWave will be used on the greens, tees and approaches, whilst the bigger one will be deployed on the fairways and semi-roughs with the objective of cracking the top open to improve drainage in time for winter.
