Golf Business News – Rainbird helps The Richmond enhance course conditions in the face of rising demand

Bordering London’s largest Royal Park and just nine miles from the centre of the capital, The Richmond Golf Club offers a tranquil parkland escape from city life. 

Founded in 1891, its 18‑hole, par‑70 course is renowned not only for its tight, tree‑lined fairways and strategic bunkering, but for the exceptional quality of its greens, tees and fairways. That conditioning is overseen by Master Greenkeeper Les Howkins, who leads a team of ten and has guided the club through a period of unprecedented demand on the turf.

Before the pandemic, The Richmond typically hosted between 18,000 and 20,000 rounds each year. Since 2020, that figure has doubled to around 40,000 rounds annually. Maintaining first‑class playing conditions under such pressure requires not just agronomic expertise but precise, reliable control of irrigation. To protect and enhance turf performance across the course, the club turned to Rain Bird’s Integrated Control System, a move which Howkins says has “made a big difference out on the course.”

The Richmond originally installed one of the first Rain Bird Freedom decoder systems in the UK in 1998. At the time it was state of the art, but around a decade ago decoder failures began to appear more frequently. “Fault finding was difficult,” Howkins explains, “and if a problem isn’t obvious someone has to go out and find it. In the following years more faults occurred, and our spend on electrical faults topped £10,000 annually, so four or five years ago I began to speak to experts to find out what was out there.

The Rain Bird IC System provided the answer. “The Rain Bird IC System was new, and it had many advantages for us,” says Howkins. “The fact that it could be retrofitted easily was a big plus, and fortunately we didn’t need any new wiring. It would give us greater functionality as the fault finding is fast and simple, so we didn’t need any special tools or skills.” 

Rather than phasing the project in three loops, the club chose to convert the entire course in one operation. Contractor John Kidson of JK Irrigation completed the work in just four weeks before Christmas 2023 — two to three weeks for the hardware installation and a week for system set‑up and testing.

“John is incredibly helpful and was there when we needed him in the aftermath of Storm Eunice,” Howkins recalls. “He provided a quote and explained the process and benefits in detail. His work on the course is neat and tidy, and we were well informed and supported throughout the project.”

With the IC System in place, the way The Richmond manages water — and by extension, course conditions — has been transformed. “The IC System has made a big difference out on the course,” says Howkins. “The adaptability — we can be much more area specific. We can do what we want with every single area without irrigating a whole fairway, and it has made a marked difference. We have better coverage, and it is particularly beneficial when working with different types of soil.” 

Previously, fairway sprinklers were paired, limiting how precisely the team could respond to localised needs. Now, each sprinkler is its own station, enabling true head‑by‑head control that supports more uniform growth, more consistent firmness and a more predictable playing experience from tee to green.

This precision is especially important where the course’s half‑sand, half sandy loam profile on ballast gravel creates subtly different growing conditions across the 6,100‑yard layout. Being able to tailor run times and application rates to each sprinkler allows the team to match irrigation much more closely to what the turf actually needs. High‑wear areas, slopes and sensitive approaches can be given exactly the right amount of water without over‑softening adjacent turf, protecting both the look and the playability of the course.

As Kidson explains, the IC conversion brings several water‑saving and performance benefits that feed directly into course conditioning. “There are a number of water saving benefits from The Richmond’s IC System conversion. Their current installation had fairway sprinklers paired. Converting to IC means each sprinkler becomes its own station, which allows for more targeted watering. Cycle + Soak is also more manager friendly. It allows for single station Cycle + Soak for irrigating areas on gradients, for example, with the ability to irrigate per sprinkler when required. This feature, programmed in the central control software, leads to reduced run‑off and less water usage.”

Less run‑off means more effective infiltration, deeper rooting and firmer surfaces, particularly on gradients that are prone to soft spots or wash‑out under older, less flexible systems.

The Richmond is also seeing measurable gains in efficiency. “We’re also saving 10% of the water we were applying — that’s a lot of water,” notes Howkins. “In a dry year there will be greater benefit.” 

While direct water costs at the club are negligible thanks to an abstraction licence that enables it to draw from three boreholes from the beginning of April to the end of September, Howkins believes that the industry’s responsibility goes beyond cost alone. 

“From irrigation systems to the use of soil moisture devices, we’re going to have to work harder to show the Environment Agency and water companies that we are using water responsibly.” 

The IC System’s ability to deliver exactly what the turf needs and no more supports that commitment to responsible use while at the same time improving the firmness and consistency that golfers feel underfoot.

The IC System was a major step forward, but The Richmond has since gone even further in its control of irrigation by upgrading its central control software to CirrusPRO. 

“It takes us to the next level, giving us control down to each individual head, and the user interface so simple,” Howkins says. “When we are out on the course, we control the entire system with an iPad there and then for even greater efficiency.” 

This on‑course control means that decisions can be made in real time, directly in response to what the team sees on the ground. Dry spots, shaded areas, high‑traffic sections and changing weather patterns can all be addressed immediately, fine‑tuning moisture levels to keep turf in its optimal performance window.

For Howkins, one of Rain Bird’s greatest strengths is the way its systems evolve without forcing clubs into constant, disruptive replacements.

 “The thing I like about Rain Bird is that it has always tried as much as possible to evolve its products rather than completely change them. As a manufacturer, that shows it has really thought about its customers and end‑users. We have been able to add on to our system and upgrade it, and it all works together. We have older rotors out on the course that are still working well, so we’ll only replace them when necessary. Longevity and upgradability mean less disruption, less cost, and less waste.”

As Howkins concludes, “We can’t make the course longer, but we can definitely make it better. Providing the best quality turf possible is the end game, and this new technology is giving us the tools to do just that.”