At Surbiton Golf Club, consistency is rarely straightforward. The golf course is built predominantly on heavy soils, carries year-round play and faces the same increasingly unpredictable conditions challenging golf courses across the UK.
What began as a conversation around improving presentation and spring recovery would eventually help shape one of Consolidate Turf Health Solutions’ more distinctive approaches: site-specific nutritional programmes tailored to the needs of individual facilities.
For Course Manager Andrew Kerr, the focus was improving turf performance without creating unnecessary growth or additional maintenance pressures.
“We were seeing turf quality deteriorate after wet winters,” explained Andrew. “We’re heavily played all year round, so you lose sward density and plant health quite quickly.
“We were looking for products that would aid recovery and improve presentation, but without creating excessive top growth. We didn’t want to create more mowing, more clipping removal and ultimately more waste.”
After first meeting Consolidate Turf Health Solutions Technical Sales Manager Rob Welford at an industry event around five years ago, early discussions quickly evolved beyond standard nutritional programmes.
Rather than managing multiple products and separate deliveries, Andrew wanted a more streamlined approach for his team.
“Having one product in a container rather than multiple products arriving separately makes life much easier,” Andrew explained. “From a staff point of view, it’s efficient, it’s straightforward and it still delivers the results we need.”
According to Rob, those conversations became the starting point for Consolidate’s bespoke mixing philosophy.
“Andrew was one of the first people to really push us on bespoke mixes,” said Rob. “Instead of five or six separate products going into a spray tank, we started looking at how we could combine products chemically and scientifically into formulations that delivered exactly what the golf course needed.”
The simplified approach also reduced logistical issues, eased pressure on staff and created more consistency during time-sensitive application windows.
For Surbiton, it also created the flexibility to adapt programmes annually depending on conditions and priorities across the golf course.
“There are no two years the same anymore,” Andrew said. “Having programmes that can be adapted for growth, recovery, overseeding or presentation has made a massive difference.”
Each season, the programme is reviewed jointly, allowing products and application strategies to evolve alongside changing conditions on the golf course.
One of the clearest examples of that collaboration came during a major drainage project carried out at the club last year.
The work, completed through autumn and winter, created significant disruption across roughs, and surrounding surfaces. Extended wet conditions delayed progress, while the following dry spring created further challenges around establishment and surface recovery.
Working alongside Andrew, Consolidate adapted its Seed Renovation Pack — usually used within winter sports — into a customised grow-in programme designed to accelerate germination and establishment across drainage lines and compacted areas.
“We needed those drainage lines to recover as quickly as possible,” Andrew explained. “The tailored mix helped promote seed germination, moisture retention and recovery across the disturbed areas.
“It gave us confidence that the investment we’d made in the project would recover properly and deliver the right result.”
“Going forward from that, we now establish tees directly from seed using tailored nutritional programmes rather than importing turf. We can take a tee from seed to playability very quickly, and it also avoids importing turf that could potentially introduce unwanted issues onto the site.”
“Consolidate are very approachable and open-minded,” he continues. “There’s always somebody you can soundboard ideas off without judgement.
“It feels less like dealing with a supplier and more like having another part of your team behind you.
“You can pick up the phone at any time and know they’ll do everything they can to help. That means a lot in this industry.”
In an industry increasingly shaped by seasonal volatility, labour pressures and rising expectations, the relationship between Surbiton Golf Club and Consolidate Turf Health Solutions demonstrates how collaborative, site-specific thinking can often deliver more than off-the-shelf programmes ever could.
