Protecting our environment and maintaining a great golf course stands highest on our agenda.

"I owe a great debt to golf course superintendents. We (architects) can only provide great facilities with these well-trained professionals to maintain them." — Robert Trent Jones, Sr.

The creation of a golf course can turn even an otherwise insignificant tract of land into a highly valuable property. The golf course architect's artistic skill and the builder's expertise can transform a desert, idle farmland — even an old landfill, into an attractive asset that beckons golfers.

However, a golf course is an special kind of asset - one that requires attentive management. So while an architect and builder lay the groundwork for a truly spectacular golf course, without skilled management, a course will never achieve its full potential. Worse, without competent management, a course will surely and progressively deteriorate.

Our Greens

Our greens were initially sown with Agrostis estolonifera, Penncross variety, which was the most widespread seed in the 80's.

As time went by, another very rustic, resilient grass called poa annua, which can withstand very low mowing and yields a high amount of seeds, unfortunately took over our greens. This phenomenon takes place in all greens worldwide. Being more invasive, the poa annua, introduces itself in the greens and ends up prevailing over the Penncross initially sown. In this case, our 100% Pencross greens became, over time, 80-90% poa annua.

In the months of July and August, just the  poa annua suffered from a criptogamic disease called Antracnosis, produced by the pathogenous Colletotrichum graminicola or collecotrichum cereale. This disease is difficult to overcome as the existing chemical products do not have the desired effect in curing or eradicating it. The only solution is to diminish and offset the action of this pathology through cultivation works.

Affected greens are left practically bare, given the percentage of poa annua is very high.  This was bound to happen every year whenever the conditions for the development and growth of the poa annua are reduced, particularly in the summer months under high temperatures.

For this reason, it was decided that the only effective way to fight this disease, impossible to eradicate, was by introducing a new Agrostis variety which is not prone to the pathology and that can, at the same time, compete against the poa annua.

This new-generation variety, the Penn A-1, which dates back to the late 90's and early 2000's, is by far more invasive than Penncross and can compete positively against poa annua, finally invading its ground. This is due to the fact that it possesses twice as many stems as Penncross, that is, 4000 stems/dm2 versus the 1850 tallos/dm2 of the Penncross.

Therefore, we changed the variety in our greens in order to solve the problem besides re-sowing them so as to prevent having to close them down while the procedure was taking place.

When sowing, we have had to planify a number of points regarding maintenance and condition of our greens, that is, the key to the success of this re-sowing lies in rendering the growth of poa annua difficult while benefitting that of A-1.

It is for this reason that there is a number of maintenance works that we cannot carry out as usual:   In the winter, when growth stops for A-1 and increses for poa annua, we cannot reduce the thickness of the plant given that if we did, the poa annua would take over that free space on the ground.   In the summer, under high temperatures, it is the poa annua that stops growing and suffers the most, contrary to the A-1 which is growing. This is the right moment to allow this variety to colonise as much free space as possible. 

We must stress that it is nowadays impossible to eradicate the poa annua with the existing means, regardless what we do. In fact, it is one of the most widespread objects of study related to golf course greens at Universities involved in grass research.

Therefore we have been forced to change our whole maintenance plan: fertilization, treatments, re-manuring, clarifying, verticut, etc.

This is the main reason why, at a given moment during the year, the greens will have a very high plant thickness, but just temporarily, as they will go back to being top-quality greens. Nevertheless, the desired effect has been achieved: We have changed the plant variety in the greens without having to close down the course, and we have not had any outbreak of the disease so far in the last year. Therefore we are proud to say that we have been able to offer greens in perfect conditions throughout most of the year.


Miguel Ángel Merchán González

Agricultural Technical Engineer

Golf Course Consultant

Environment & Maintenance

A golf course is a living, breathing thing. Creating a quality golf course does not end the day the construction crew leaves. Instead, it is a lifelong process - to which the greatest attention needs to be given.

We regard the protecion of our golf course and its environment as being crucial.  Holding a leading position among other golf courses in the area, we are aware of the important role that we play regarding the protection of nature and environmental policy; therefore we are placing great importance on being environmentally friendly.  

Our power-saving policy, correct use of bio-fertilizers, rational use of water, and the preservation of our countryside, are the principles that govern our day-to-day doings.   Our goal is to maintain harmony between golf, people and ecology .  

Golf at Novo Sancti Petri  – hand in hand with nature. 

Cutting Height of Greens, Fairways and Tees... 

We golfers often discuss whether the greens are higher or lower, that is, about cutting height and green speed. We would like to point out that the sole factor behind green speed is not how high or low the grass is cut, although it is the most relevant one.

Cushion thickness is also to be taken into account, therefore depending, among other things, on how often the greens are re-manured. The thicker the cushion, the slower it is. The more often the verticut and the re-manuring is done, the faster the ball rolls.  That is why there is no need for concern if you sometimes find long cuts on the surface of the greens. This is a standard maintenance procedure carried out in order to get rid of the cushion in our greens.

At the moment, we are cutting the greens to 3.0 mm. (approx. 0.12 in) on a daily basis. We consider the speed of the greens to be a reasonable one , regarding a shorter cut as being inappropriate.  Nevertheless, we must always keep in mind that under the high temperatures of the summer months,  the grass grows very quickly, therefore, when we play in the late afternoon, we cannot expect the greeen speed to be the same as in the morning.

Our standard cutting heights are: 12 mm (approx. 0.47 in) on the fairways, 9 mm (approx. 0.35 in) on the tees, and 3.5 cm (approx. 1.38 in) on the rough.