Naas Golf Club go into fourth year of using IMANTS Shockwave.
The Imants Shockwave has become the de-compactor of choice at Naas Golf Club, Co Kildare, as it goes into its fourth year of use on the club’s greens and approaches.
It is the view of course manager, David Behan, that the Shockwave is the best option on the market for handling deep compaction, and it is that reason why it is now going into its fourth year at the club.
The work with the machine is carried out by Harris Turf Improvement, who are contracted in to conduct the Autumn and Spring renovations. As well as dealing with deep it being more player friendly are the reasons.
“We are a high play golf course with over one thousand members so it’s high maintenance as well. So, it’s really just about de-compaction, that’s what I wanted it for. Plus, then I can go back and use the greens very quickly because of the small amount of disruption it causes. We’d normally use a hollow or micro tine after then roll over it and you can play straight away.
“At the moment we use it in the autumn and spring renovation programme, so October and March. We do them all in a day and that’s very economical for us, and in the October period we usually do the approaches as well, so it goes to a two-day programme.”
The Imants ShockWave is a compaction, David also uses the machine because the small amount of surface disruption it causes. He said: “This is the fourth year I’ve used the Shockwave on the greens and I really like it. It works great on deep compaction and from a Penetrometer point of view the results are always where we want them to be after it’s been used. “We used to use another machine and we got good results from it because we were looking at deep compaction, but the problem was the heave it created. I’m getting better decompaction results with the Shockwave, and that along with linear de-compactor, designed to revitalise heavy wear areas by relieving soil compaction, improving aeration and removing surface water.
The machine is reputed to be the world’s fastest PTO driven rotary, linear de-compactor. It is designed for use on fine turf and sports fields. As with all ShockWave models, it features a no-chains, direct drive design, maintenance free ‘sealed for life’ bearings & no shear bolts.
As well as the Shockwave David has also had extensive demonstrations of the Air2G2 and is looking to incorporate it into his mid-summer programme. He also recognises the use of the machine being able to go down to 12 inches, which is greater than the reach of the Shockwave.
