By: Pat Jones | Alec Macindoe is a top course manager in a highly competitive market who values old-school agronomy. But, he hasn’t been afraid to try new technologies to solve age-old issues with soils and nutrition.
Alec Macindoe’s profile on Twitter notes proudly that he’s a believer in the “old school traditions of course maintenance.”
Well, his dad was the longtime course manager of Killarney Golf & Fishing Club in southern Ireland where he hosted four Irish Opens, so Macindoe has undeniably old-school roots. To dig in deeper, we asked the course manager of the wonderful old West Surrey Golf Course what those traditions meant to him today.
“It’s about being true to yourself. It’s creating a turf environment that’s healthy and sustainable. As an industry, golf is seemingly now all about presentation and color, but I want to produce good healthy turf with the right grasses. To produce finer grasses, with better turf quality and turf health, you need to be using the right amount of products – but usually a lower amount of water and nutrients. You have to be aware of the balance that the soil needs. That’s what old school means to me, and I work really hard to try to do that.”
What’s the agronomic key? “If I can get the soil microbes working for me, culturally, and not try to encourage growth as much as maintain good turf, then we get the results I am looking for. I’ve used that approach at every course I’ve managed and it has always been successful for the greens.”
That’s been Macindoe’s mantra for over 8 years at West Surrey. He’s created a better product, which in turn, has helped to drive memberships, rounds, and revenues.
Not surprisingly, his first year at the club focused almost entirely on greens. “They were up and down (in quality) so we went back to the basics,” said Macindoe.
Alec’s team had the Procore out every week and used the Air2 G2 heavily, plus Vertidrain deep-tining and lots of topdressing. “It was largely cultural, but within six months we produced a better, more consistent course. Within a year we had members coming in and the golf course clearly looked better. The snowball started and the club has supported us well.”
But he was also looking for better plant health and more sustainable nutritional practices. He’d worked with Aquatrols and used Revolution® and other products from the company and felt good about their approach. He got in touch with his rep, Peter Lacey, to explore his options.
“I wanted some longer-term solutions. Peter Lacey is a good rep and I believe in him. I liked Revolution but I have to admit I was dubious about Redox. But Pete said, ‘This is right up your street, this is going to fit right in with your philosophy.’ I trusted Pete and Aquatrols so we decided to give it a go.”
For the first 6-9 months, they used a program with a monthly tank mix of equal parts of TurfRx OxyCal, NatureCur, and Si. They also had Mick Fance of Aquatrols Europe help them identify initial benchmarks to track key factors like root depth and root density. “Both metrics improved but I also observed that we simply weren’t getting the diseases that others in the area were hit by. And we noticed that if we did have a little disease it wasn’t too aggressive and the recovery was far quicker,” said Macindoe.
His team has since modified the schedule to trickle-feed greens weekly in order to give the flexibility to tinker with nutrients at different times of the year. “If we get into a period where we need to push them on a little bit, you might up your nutrient and mix it in with the Redox.”
Alec says that the result of the trickle approach has been amazing: “We now have just very consistent surfaces.”
He says the members are a bit ‘gob smacked’ that they’re producing greens like this in the winter and that there’s no fusarium or other winter disease. “They love it,” says Macindoe. “They think I’m just lucky but it’s really the result of us producing much healthier growing environments.”
The results are clear but how else does the program benefit Macindoe and West Surrey? “I’m not going into work worrying about what I’m going to get hit with. I worry less about problems and recovery. Our fungicide usage is way down which is obviously a big savings. And what we spend per month on Redox is way less than what we’d be spending on granular fertilizer without all the negatives that come along with granular fertilizers.”
“If I can get plant health every week without that flush, it’s absolutely worth it. And the boosts to consistency and confidence are huge. It allows me to think more clearly about the golf course. You’re in a better frame of mind to trust the process of what you’re doing and the products that help you do it. “
So how does that traditional approach fit with today’s maintenance practices and products? “Redox is the first product I’ve come across that genuinely fits with my principles and my philosophies.”
Most importantly, what does his father say about the modern way he’s implementing his old-school philosophy? “I think deep down he’s so old school he probably doesn’t believe anything that comes out of a jug could fix anything. (Laughs) But he does visit and he kind of embarrasses me and says he could have never produced surfaces like ours. He thinks the results are great and he’s very proud.”
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