Pitchcare: Sentosa Golf Club - the world’s best

Tue 21 July 2020

Home to two of the region's most exclusive and challenging golf courses; The Serapong and The New Tanjong, Sentosa Golf Club is enjoyed by more than 1,500 members from prominent and influential circles. Since 2005, international star players and world-class golf professionals from Asia, Europe and the USA have descended on its championship greens to putt for the Barclays Singapore Open and HSBC Women's Champions.

Pitchcare: How long have you worked here?

Andrew (Andy) Johnston: I have worked at Sentosa Golf Club for ten years full time, firstly, joining as Director of Agronomy in 2010. The club offered the General Manager's role on top of the DOA responsibilities in 2013. Prior to joining Sentosa Golf Club in a full-time role, I also took on the assignment for an additional five years as a golf course design consultant when I was the Vice President of the Bates Golf Design Group.

How did you get into the industry and where did you work prior to your current position? I have been in the golf industry my entire life. My first job (at fourteen) was at Tanoan Country Club in Albuquerque, New Mexico, cleaning clubs and washing golf carts. Golf was in our family from the day I was born. My father was an avid and accomplished golfer, and a member at the Boardmoor Golf Club in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he won many amateur championships in his youth and adult life. Additionally, my well decorated Italian grandfather was the Head Chef at the Boardmoor Golf Club for many years. I think you could say the influence of golf and club was something I was born with.

What training and education did you undertake? My education includes an architectural degree from Phoenix Institute of Technology followed by a degree in turfgrass management from Michigan State University, and of course the school of hard knocks. In terms of my training, I have spent my entire career working hands on in the field of construction, as well as delivering grow-ins for new golf courses. I have also been lucky enough to have gained many insights, guidance and coaching into our profession, that many people may not know about, from some of the world's most decorated professional golfers, architects and superintendants. The advantage of this allows me to be perhaps one of the most well-rounded industry professionals; whether practising as a golf course architect, or an agronomic expert and of course running SGC as the general manager.

Was there one person who inspired you? How do you pick one? So many people in my life have provided me with so many meaningful inspirations. If I had to choose one, it would be Arnold Palmer, as he shaped many things that still drive me today during the years that I spent under his umbrella. Of course, my father also who had long lasting driving influence on my character and career.

Are you responsible for budgets or do you report to someone else? Yes, I am responsible for budgets and everything the sun touches. I also have a few direct reports as well. Sentosa Golf Club is owned by Sentosa Development Corporation and I report to the CFO of the Sentosa Development Corporation. As well as this, we have a Club President and a Club Captain who also have input in our operations and I work very closely with.

About your club. The courses are semi-tropical parkland. The Serapong is a monstrous golf course, whilst The New Tanjong is a great course with more of a sand belt feel to it. The Serapong is Par 72 6794 metres (180 acres) and The New Tanjong is Par 72 6479 metres (130 acres).

What additional staff do you have? I work closely with Superintendent Rodney Mckeown and, under him, there are seventy-five men and women in the agronomy team that he leads (including five workshop technicians to carry out in-house servicing).

How would you describe the soil profile generally? The original soil profile is heavy clay; however, we have imported a 1-metre sand cap that helps with the massive amount of rain that we get.

How were the greens and tees constructed? The greens and tees are all 100% USGA construction method with drainage. The greens are all equipped with SubAir.

Do they require any special maintenance techniques? Yes. We run our greens on a daily basis at an average of 10.5 in the high humidity conditions that we face. Therefore, we have to implement many special techniques to make sure this can happen on a consistent basis. We also maintain the tees at the same HOC as the greens.

Do you have any additional equipment/systems at your disposal? We have an equipment fleet that would rival some of the world's best. We have SubAir in our greens, as well as perhaps the most sophisticated fertigation system in Asia. We have a single head control irrigation system and five weather stations that use modern task tracking software called Turf Keeper. Recently, we have invested in six ProCores and use them on a monthly basis. We also invested in six GPS spray rigs and have over sixty walking greens mowers - just a small taste of our equipment and systems that we use.

Does the course suffer from any regular natural occurrences? We are in a semi sub-tropical environment, so therefore, we see large quantities of rain in monsoonal storms from time to time. With the humid conditions, we normally experience daily thunderstorms, but for the most part the weather is very predictable. The sun rises at 7.00am and sets at 7.00pm, with the temperature ranging from 25 in the evening to 33 in the day. As with all environments, we adapt, we plan, we track and then we adjust on a day to day basis. We have found some products that we use are more effective when applied in lower temperatures, so there are times that we use applications at 2.00am to get the maximum out of the product.

Are there any issues with shade and air flow? We do have some isolated corners of the property where both shade and airflow are a factor. We have also invested in turf breeze fans and I believe we have somewhere around eighteen of them on the property for the thirty-six holes, but using our intuitive skills we manage these things well.

Do you have a driving range? We have a driving range facility that is double ended T at the top and bottom. We have a short game practice facility that is widely used, and we run many clinics on it, as well as it being used at times as a training center by the R&A for the Men's Asian Amateur Championships. We also have three high tech academies at our practice facilities.

Maintenance regimes

Our weekly and monthly maintenance regimes are pretty predictable. We do the same thing week in week out and month in month out, unless we're preparing for a major championship.

In our normal day-to-day club life, we verticut and top dress our greens in two directions every Monday, before making fertilitiser and Primo applications every Wednesday. As well as this, we core our greens with pencil tines once a month.

For the past three years, we have been using some new carbon-based programmes that have allowed us to reduce our fertiliser inputs to our greens by more than 50%. These products are developed by amp agronomy, and the products have become so important. They have also allowed us to reduce our nematicides applications by up to 95%, including a reduction in fungicide applications.

We maintain the greens and tees at 3mm on a daily basis. We have a fleet of fairway and rough mowers that also helps keep the balance of the property under control and we have invested in fairway rollers, as well as having four transformer fairway rollers that, at times, we use on our putting services.

Do you have specific tasks for specific staff or is it an 'all hands to the pump' approach? We do have specific staff for specific tasks such as our irrigation technicians who are spray technicians, but we do believe in cross training everybody, so that our entire team can be a valuable tool. We also believe that our people are the most important piece of equipment. Therefore, we spend a lot of time making sure that we are healthy, mentally strong and all prepared to support each other to give 100% every day.