Verulam Golf Club is located on London road in St Albans close to The Odyssey Cinema. It’s a beautiful course with a driving range and putting green and the clubhouse has a bar to relax in after a lovely round of golf. But unfortunately, hotter summers have created a problem.

 

Member Matt Bourn states that ‘Last summer, during the drought the golf course was the driest I’ve ever seen it’. Due to rising temperatures, this will most likely be happening more frequently. Bourn continues ‘It was quite worrying to see large expanses of grass as dry as straw’.  In addition to this, it made the course ‘much harder to play on, because the ground was so hard’. The golf club needed a way to become self sufficient with its water supply, protected if they lost it, so actions were taken.

 

Bourn describes that ‘As a club, we desperately needed our own water supply but we weren’t able to take water from our usual borehole because the water level there was too low’. To solve this problem, another borehole has been installed, on the left hand side of the first fairway, so they can come off mains water. After the borehole was drilled, pipework and a pump was installed so that 20 cubic metres of water can be taken into a holding tank daily. For this season, it’s estimated to save around 15% of the current annual water useage.

 

Verulam Golf Club are discussing phase 2 to share with the members in summer. This will involve the building of two lakes alongside the 10th hole which will act as reservoirs. Water will be drawn from these in future when there’s an increased demand. This type of water management is likely to become more and more common on golf courses across the country. Members are excited about this development. Bourn added ‘Hopefully, the new reservoir will mean the fairways will stay green in future summers, however there is also the risk that I may lose a few golf balls in the lake on the 10th’.