Ronnie Miles is the Head Greenkeeper at Buchanan Castle Golf Course, Glasgow, Scotland. He has been using the Imants SandCat over an extended period of three years and recently bought his own machine.
“Our main objective at the golf club is to keep the greens playable for 12 months of the year and seven years ago when I arrived at the club we undertook a major drainage programme on all the greens.
However we had to find an additional way of carrying the water from the surface down into the main drainage system and we looked at gravel banding, solids and everything but the method that impressed us most of all was the Sandcat.
“We brought it in to work on one green and it’s turned our wettest green into our driest green to within six to eight weeks and it was playable for a majority of winter last year.
Normally it would have been left redundant from November through to March. The water transfer from the top surface to the existing drainage system has been remarkable.”
More work was carried out last October where Ronnie worked on an apron section to test it. He was delighted with how well it went and has since purchased his own machine.
“I recommend waiting until late September early October because you’ve still got a bit of germination and growth to allow it to fully recover.
We know from experience we can do two greens a day with ideal conditions; one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Our aim is to get all the greens in play for the coming winter and I genuinely know that this will be achieved because of the effectiveness of the Sandcat.”
What is the Imants SandCat?
The Imants SandCat moves lightly over the turf, slitting the surface and introducing sand to improve drainage and enhance the properties of the rootzone.
