Unfortunately we have had to delay the release of John’s new book Performance Bowling Greens due to a technical error with the website software. We are working on this now but to be sure we have time to make the required changes and do thorough testing afterwards, we are postponing release of the book until Monday 22nd February.
We are very sorry for the delay, but want to make sure that everything works smoothly during and after the release. This is due to the huge interest there has been in the book and our concerns about the effect of this demand on the website.
Please be assured that all of you who have pre-booked will be alerted as soon as the book is released. Meantime you can still pre-book using the form below:
You might have noticed that the website has a had a re-vamp. Although this has been in planning for a while we thought we would bring the new site forward to coincide with the launch of John’s new book Performance Bowling Greens, which will be available here from Monday 15th February.
There has been a lot of interest in the book this week as John has been sharing some of his insights about bowling green maintenance with us. We would like to thank all of you who have filled out the pre-booking form and apologise for not getting back to all of you personally, but this would have taken too much time out of an already busy week. We have now compiled a list of pre-bookings and will be in touch as soon as the book is available on Monday.
Meantime if you would like to be added to the pre-booking list please fill out the form below and you will get priority notice of the book’s availability. We are doing this to try to make sure the site isn’t overloaded with requests on Monday.
So have a great weekend and we will be back in touch soon.
A high proportion of the bowling greens I see every year are victims of what has become accepted as “conventional maintenance”. I say victims, because much of what has come to be accepted as normal in bowling green maintenance, is anything but, if you happen to be a grass plant or a healthy living soil.
Below you will find a very popular article that was published on this site a while back, which illustrates very clearly the dangers inherent in “going with the flow” or following the herd to put it another way!
The diagram above shows the process that many poorly maintained bowling greens experience over a period of years if 3 basic maintenance issues are not addressed as a priority.
The top 3 issues on all fine turf are read more…
In less than a week my new book, Performance Bowling Greens will be launched on this site; 15th of February to be precise. In the lead up to the launch we have been looking into some of the obstacles that stand in the way of the average bowling club achieving the performance they desire from their green. Today I want to look at one of those obstacles more closely and that is the obstacle that Tradition puts in our way. The trouble is that many of these “traditions” are really not that old. One of the most damaging of these is the “tradition” of top-dressing our greens with high sand content dressings every year.
Now I should warn you at the outset that this is a long one and you might want to grab a coffee before we get started. The reason for the length of this article is that I don’t just want to discuss the process of top-dressing; I also want to show you how damaging it can be to your green and how damaging it can be to your wallet. To do that I am going to re-present to you 3 of the most clicked on articles we’ve ever published on this site (which shows, I think, that many clubs already understand the problem). So here we go:
At most bowling clubs the end of September is when thoughts will start to turn to the autumn renovation program or the “closing of the green” as many clubs call it. Bowling clubs throughout the UK will take delivery of between 3 and 10 tonnes of very expensive top-dressing compost, which will be applied to the green after hollow tining or some other aeration operation, in the belief that read more…
Can any old Tom, Dick or Harry produce a Performance Bowling Green?
Earlier this week I was talking about the 4 barriers to success that I regularly encounter at bowling clubs. These were Desperation (for a good green), Traditions (that aren’t as traditional as we think sometimes), Myths (not dragons and wizards, but greenkeeping myths) and of course Consistency or rather the lack of it.
Well today I want to tell you a story about a typical bowling club. Just for the record this isn’t based on any one club, but is a very common pattern of events. If you are a bowling club member, you might instantly recognise this pattern and think I am talking about your club, but I assure you I’m not. If you are a bowling club member and this doesn’t ring any bells, then I would put money on your green being the best in your area, that you have a thriving membership and everything at your club is rosy. If that’s the case you are to be congratulated. To the story then:
Back in the late 1970’s our bowling club was doing ok, membership was thriving and the green was playing well. The greenkeeper, who we’ll call Tom, was an enthusiastic amateur and up until that point he had the full backing of the membership, he was read more…
The quality and consistency of the playing surface on your green and your club’s chances of long term survival are inextricably linked, why?
Well if we consider the sport of bowls as a business for a minute it is clear, at least in the UK , that there is a vast over supply in the bowling marketplace. There simply isn’t enough demand for bowling to sustain the sheer volume of clubs that currently exist. The reasons for this are manifold and include some really “deep” factors which economists and sociologists might describe as, well… socio-economic, but the most important thing for bowling clubs to consider is that there simply aren’t enough bowlers around to make every UK bowling club economically sustainable. In other words some, maybe many, clubs will perish in the years to come.
Of course, there are big picture issues that can be addressed and might help to improve the uptake of the game, like for instance the way bowls is marketed, and the general image of the game, perhaps more TV coverage of tournaments would help. All of that is big stuff, that can and will take a long time to bear fruit.
Meantime, if we come back to the close up view, the view out of your clubhouse window in fact, we can all start to do something this year to give our own club the greatest chance of survival; and that is to read more…
When I set out to write my new book, Performance Bowling Greens, which is released on this site on Monday 15th February, it made me think about the main obstacles to success encountered by many of the bowling clubs I visit and in many ways it comes down to what can only be described as Common Sense versus Commerce. The 4 biggest obstacles I encounter again and again are as follows:
- Desperation Mode; or a state of mind that permeates a club when nothing they do seems to yield the results they crave.
- Lack of Consistency; which is direct result of the 1st obstacle, and is when the club repeatedly changes its approach to maintenance because it basically has no faith in any of the maintenance models it encounters.
- Tradition; although a lot of the traditions in question are not that old.
- Greenkeeping Myths.
The reasons for the problems I have just mentioned are mainly to do with read more…
Now that the snow and ice seems to be going (I hope I’m not tempting fate!) and of course that the new season is suddenly just around the corner, we’ve been getting a lot of enquiries asking two basic questions:
What is the ideal maintenance program to ensure an excellent bowling green surface this year? and…
How can we reduce costs for maintenance without compromising the performance of the green?
Well, although both of these questions are fairly easy to answer, the actual solution depends a lot on what has gone before and at what stage your green is at, in terms of performance at the moment.
The pursuit of excellence on a sensible budget has been very firmly on John Quinn, our Managing Director’s mind over the last few months also. That’s because he’s been absorbed in read more…
We have received a lot of enquiries over the past few days asking for advice on dealing with the snow and ice 
on bowling greens and the aftermath:
The main concern during and after snow cover is the potential for the outbreak of snow mould which is caused by the same fungal pathogen as fusarium patch; and indeed, fusarium might well be encountered after the snow has melted. Although many clubs will have applied a preventative fungicide in the Autumn, this might not have provided total protection, but should have minimised the risk of attack.
When the snow has gone you might well find active areas of Fusarium and this should be treated with a curative fungicide containing the active ingredients iprodione or chlorothalonil applied as per the manufacturer’s advice.
Many of the enquiries we have received have been related to the actual snow cover and read more…
Regardless of whether your green played well this year or not, the winter months are a critical time for ensuring your green is in top condition when the new season starts in Spring 2010. Winter Green Maintenance is so often overlooked and if you had even the slightest trouble with your green’s playability or health this season, you must address the underlying causes in the close season to have any chance of a great green next year.
We’ve released a Comprehensive Free report which you can access by clicking here
In this comprehensive free report we cover all read more…