SEEING IS BELIEVING AT BRICKENDON
GRANGE GOLF CLUB
Two new Otterbine aerating fountains to celebrate golden jubilee
Brickendon Grange’s deputy greenkeeper Lewis Mattholie, left, and H2O Plants’ Billy Hancock,
right, stand behind one of two Otterbine Fractional five-in-one aerating fountains installed by
H2O Plants.
T
here’s nothing like a bit of
ingenuity to bring in the results,
as Lewis Mattholie, deputy
greenkeeper at Brickendon
Grange Golf Club, can attest to. And the
result is two new beauty spots, thanks
to Otterbine’s Fractional aerators, for the
club’s golfers to enjoy.
With its 17th hole voted the Greatest
Amateur Hole in the UK in the 2016 Grass
Roots Golf competition, Lewis and the
team at the Hertfordshire club wanted all
the club’s holes to be equal.
And with the problem of slightly
stagnating water in two of the ponds
flanking the eighth and eighteenth holes
to solve, and the occasion of the club’s
50th anniversary to mark, Lewis decided it
was time to tackle the problem.
26 Landscape & Urban Design
“The water in two of our ponds needed
some TLC,” Lewis tells us. “The water was
stagnating a little and starting to smell. I
knew the answer was an aerator, but as
with most things in life it’s a bit of a hard
sell to get people to buy into something
they can’t see.
“I figured I could quite easily create a
makeshift unit with a hose and end plug
to demonstrate the affect of a fountain, so
I went ahead and made one!”
The result was the management
committee could instantly see how a
fountain would rejuvenate the two holes
by bringing beauty and tranquillity to
them, essentially creating two new beauty
spots for golfers to enjoy.
Knowing Brickendon’s ponds needed aerators,
Lewis ingeniously created a makeshift fountain
to demonstrate the benefits they would bring.
And by choosing Otterbine’s Fractional
five-in-one aerating system, which
combines beauty with function, the club
not only benefits from two new beauty
spots, but improved water quality too.
The Fractional can be relied upon to
keep the ecosystem of any smaller
area of water in perfect balance thanks
to its ability to transfer an impressive
1kg/2.2lbs of oxygen per hp/hr and its
pumping rate of 115m3/ph.
Lewis says: “The water quality has
vastly improved. Gone is the problem
of stagnating and smelling water, which
was perfect timing for the club’s 50th
anniversary!”