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Coronavirus may have briefly stopped play but Redlibbets Golf Club are full steam ahead with their plans for improving the course.
While players were kept away during the lockdown the club’s own greenkeepers and specialist contractors were able to get on with the first phase of the golf course improvements, without having to worry about the occasional miss-directed golf shot.
It’s part of a five year plan of improvements at the club, which is near Sevenoaks.
Over the past eighteen months, owners Get Golfing have made major improvements to the clubhouse, which are on-going, and in February work started on the course itself.
Having acquired a long lease from the previous owners, Get Golfing wanted to make the course at Redlibbets, in their own words “one that golfers want to play and be members of while, at the same time, providing a family focused facility that everyone could enjoy.”
An injection of funds have allowed that to happen.
Golf clubs were closed to players on March 24 because of strict lockdown measures. They were allowed to reopen in mid-May and at the start of June three and fourball golf returned.
While members and visitors were absent, Redlibbets got to work.
The refurbishment of the bunkers is a major part of this first phase and involves filling in those that were badly positioned and creating new ones in areas that need them.
Every one of the 60 bunkers are being re-profiled and lined with a 30mm thick layer of a porous rubber crumb material and filled with new bunker sand.
A new irrigation system has also been installed which is fed from a 150m deep bore hole. So, in addition to a reliable irrigation system for the greens and approaches, green staff are now able to manually water greens during periods of dry weather. A new tee box is also being constructed on the 9th hole which will make for much better golfing experience.
Ed Richardson, chief exec of Get Golfing and a former England player said: “I was well aware of Redlibbets long before this opportunity presented itself and was equally aware of what was needed in order to make the club a success.
“What you can see now is only the second year of a five-year plan – effectively the first phase. With other significant initiatives and investment planned I and the team here are definitely in this for the long haul.”
