Preserving biodiversity

Paying close attention to the biodiversity of our courses is important for two reasons. Firstly, to preserve the nature that is actually present on the golf course, and to enhance it by, for example, allowing flowering meadows to grow in areas that are out of play, or endemic heather in the undergrowth. But also to help us maintain the course in the truest sense of the word. Some of our maintenance problems can be solved and combated with the help of macrofauna. For example, insects like mosquitoes and the big cousins that lay larvae in the greens are vectors of disease. But birds such as tits eat a considerable number of these insects, as well as the processionary caterpillars that are very present in our pine forests. So installing nesting boxes on the course helps them to get to grips with the area and stay there. The same goes for the bats, for which we have set up refuges and left some dead trees in the forest areas. All these birds and insects are, in a way, our precious maintenance aids.