Golden Bear works magic around Killeen Castle fairy tree

GOLF:The Killeen Castle course superintendent was involved virtually from day one in the planning and construction, writes MARK COLLINS

IT WAS some 15 years ago that I first set foot on the land that would become Killeen Castle and, back then, the first impact was that it was in every way a big site. That was in 1996 and, to all intents and purposes, it was a big, bare field and it was very hard to get a picture in your mind of how it would all look when the castle was restored and a golf course with bunkers, lakes and greens were created on the flat terrain.

When Jack Nicklaus came on board some years later, it all started to take shape in more ways than one. From day one, it became clear that Jack’s vision was for a big course.

I first met Nicklaus in 2004/05 when he was planning the routing and, in this day and age of hi-tech imagery and what not, it was interesting to observe that the method of routing was the old tried and trusted way of planting a stake in the ground to indicate the location of each tee box, fairway and green complex.

As the course superintendent, it was good to be involved virtually from day one in the planning and construction phases. Roadbridge was the overall contractor – including the property – and Southern Golf was contracted to do the finishing work on the golf course and the first work in 2004 was more civil and involved in terms of internal water, sewerage, etc.

In terms of the work on the golf course itself, the whole site was first killed off with Roundup, a herbicide used to get rid of the grasses that were already there. Roadbridge then came in and excavated all the top soil that was there and stockpiled it, after which the Nicklaus crew of shapers came in. In a nutshell, what these guys do in their bulldozers is to shape the golf hole, the tee box, the contouring of the fairway, the green, the bunkering. Everything.

And after three or four holes had been shaped, Nicklaus would come in, walk the holes and make whatever adjustments were agreed on as the entire team walked the holes.

The ground was then cleaned and drained every 10 metres laterally, across the line of play, and the irrigation was put in at that point. From there, the top soil was then placed back using a sand capping over every drainage line to a depth of 20 centimetres (eight inches) with top soil placed in between and then there was five centimetres (two inches) of sand put over the whole golf course before it was seeded and grown out.

That all happened in 2006 – the time that the Solheim Cup people came for the first site visit, seeing a course that was yet to be built but which wanted to play host to the event in 2011 – and, then, in 2007, when the ground had matured a little, some 278,000 kilometres of sand slitting went in, which was then top-dressed with an additional 25,000 tonnes of sand over a two-year period.

The logistics of the course’s development were immense, but Roadbridge and everyone involved – Peter O’Brien Landscaping did the gravel banding – were fantastic. It was time consuming and expensive but it was a clear message from the owners that they wanted to have the driest golf course that was physically possible to build. That was the goal from day one.

I don’t know how many trees were brought on site during the course’s construction but I believe in 2007 it was the biggest landscaping project in Europe. Specimen trees were brought in – one tree to one truck – and some 70,000 square metres of turf was imported: all bunkers, all green surrounds, all tee surrounds were turfed. It was a big undertaking.

Through it all, though, one area of the land was never touched. On what became the 12th hole – a par five with the salmon weirs – there was a fairy tree, a much-venerated white hawthorn. It was commented to Jack Nicklaus from early on that he could do anything on site apart from move that tree. It was probably the most guarded specimen on site for four years just in case anything happened. It was fenced off and roped off so that nobody could get near it. And now this sacred tree in Irish mythology remains as a guard close by what is now the 12th green.

Mark Collins is the Course Superintendent at Killeen Castle in Dunsany, Co Meath, which plays host to the Irish Ladies Open on August 5th-7th and to the Solheim Cup on September 23rd-25th.