kingennie golf course Features

The Kingennie course features three par 3, five par 4 and one par 5 tees and greens, all crafted to the United States Golf Association’s benchmark standards and irrigated. They are carefully maintained by a team led by greenkeeper Gregor Norrie, formerly senior greenkeeper at the Gleneagles PGA course.

Until recently, greenkeepers avoided using traditional coarse-leaved perennial ryegrass on golf greens. But now, thanks to a Barenbrug breeding programme which has developed an exceptionally fine-leaved ryegrass called Bargold, this is changing, and much more ryegrass is now being successfully used in fine turf situations.

Confidence in this new cultivar has increased following the construction of Kingennie Golf Course, at Broughty Ferry near Dundee. It has been designed by Graeme Webster of Team Niblick - who has designed more golf courses north of the border than any other living Scotsman.

A big fan of Barenbrug amenity grasses, he specified the use of BAR Platinum across the whole course - including tees, fairways, semi-roughs and the USGA constructed greens. This mixture has excellent close mowing characteristics and superb winter colour. Unlike conventional ryegrasses it tolerates close mowing. The mixture is ideal for heavy wear areas on the golf course, has outstanding disease resistance and drought tolerance, and maintains a superb fine appearance.

"The course at Kingennie is one of the best projects I have ever seen for development of a playing surface," says Graeme Webster. "The grass has established quickly and evenly, and the mixture is doing incredibly well in all situations”.