After five years of hard work, Royal Dublinʼs management team reckons it has the links-style waving fescue rough just where it wants it. Adam Lawrence reports.

Managing links rough properly is hard. Tall, waving fescue is a key part of the iconic look of links courses, but getting the balance between aesthetics and playability is one of the most difficult challenges greenkeepers face.

Fescue can be induced to grow tall and attractive without becoming thick and impossible to extract a ball from. But if excess water or fertiliser is allowed to fall onto the rough areas, or the soil is allowed to get too fertile – a typical problem is mowing the tall grass without removing the clippings, which then decay into the soil, creating organic matter for grass plants to feed on – then the fescue will become a golfer’s nightmare, pretty to look at, but a probable lost ball hazard when visited.

I was lucky enough to visit the Royal Dublin course on Bull Island in Dublin Harbour during July. The course, which was largely the creation of Harry Colt until it was extensively redesigned by Martin Hawtree over several years in the early 2000s, is a classic low profile links. There are no big dunes on Bull Island, but the firm, bouncy fairways and the ever-present wind make the course a tough test of golf. Irish golf legend Christy O’Connor Sr was professional here for many years (he is now an honorary life member), and a plaque on the sixteenth green commemorates his astonishing eagle-birdie-eagle finish to win the 1966 Irish Open.

The home hole is among the most unusual I have ever seen. When Christy made his score, it played as a short par five, but it is now a long four, and a more intimidating hole it is hard to imagine. At 483 yards from the back marker, it ought to be scary enough, but the 90 degree dogleg right and the fact that everything on the inside of the dogleg is out of bounds makes it truly terrifying. Yet it is fantastically strategic too: place your tee shot close to the OB fence on the right and the hole plays shorter than its yardage. Here I must commend my playing partner on the day, New York-based literary agent David McCormick, whose four wood second over the OB (and into the teeth of a strengthening wind) to within ten feet of the flag might just be the greatest golf shot I have ever witnessed.

What struck me most about Royal Dublin, though, was the brilliance of the presentation of the roughs, possibly the most perfect links rough I have ever seen. The fescue was tall, and framed the fairways perfectly as it swayed in the wind, but it was extremely open, making finding errant shots fairly easy and advancing your ball feasible – a perfect half shot penalty.

This wasn’t always the case. “During the redevelopment of the course under Martin Hawtree, there was a lot of non-native soil imported, and we believe a lot of non-native grass came in with that,” says Brian McClean, a member of the club’s Links Committee. “This was compounded by a number of really wet winters – and that caused us lots of problems. So, five or six years ago, we decided we needed adopt a policy of scarifying the roughs to encourage native fescues.”

Additionally, the club, along with head greenkeeper Paddy Teeling, put in a policy of minimising fertiliser and water inputs. “We have part circle irrigation heads, which helps us prevent overthrow onto the rough, even when we do irrigate,” says Teeling.

But it is the scarification programme which he and the club think has been especially successful. “We acquired a small rough cutter and a Jacobsen 214 scarifying unit, and for the first two years, we would scarify to a depth of about an inch in two directions, four months a year. Now, we only have to go in to a depth of half an inch. And although this year’s dry weather has obviously helped, even in a wet year we are confident the rough with remain sparse and open.” “We specifically don’t cut the rough in the summer and we allow it to seed,” says links convenor Enda McDermott. “The hope is that in a wet summer the fescue will be strong enough to still dominate.”

Anyone visiting Royal Dublin could hardly fail to agree that the results have been extremely impressive. So many courses get rough presentation wrong, either mowing it down for playability reasons, which is harmful to the unique flora and fauna, or allowing it to grow thick and impenetrable, a guarantee of slow and painful rounds for those not skilled enough to keep the ball in the fairway. “We had so many complaints from members about lost balls and lack of playability that we had no choice,” says McDermott. “But we’re really happy with the impact of our programmes, and we just need to keep on top of them in the future.”

This article originally appeared in GCA issue 34, published October 2013.