Bowling Green Holistic Performance Management

A fundamental requirement in the use of performance standards is to manage a green holistically. It is important to understand the impact and influence changes to maintenance practices can have on the individual standards and how these might also influence, negatively or positively, the parameters of other standards. Cherry picking standards to measure and assess to arrive at an overall quality rating much higher than is representative on the ground is just cheating yourself and others and does not lead to the effective management of a green and builds-up problems in the green which will typically require very expensive solutions, which would not have arisen if managed effectively in the first place.

At the start of a playing season the actual values that are assessed on the green should be as near to optimum as reasonably practicable and as the season progresses then the green will wear, with gradual deterioration occurring. The aim of a greenkeeper, or one of the aims, is to manage the maintenance input and usage levels to ensure standards are maintained as best they can, for example to ‘ideally’ have 100% desirable grass ground cover, and not to drop below or exceed the relevant parameters for the particular standard of green.

The values for any standard can be amended to meet the needs of a client or contract, however, having an understanding of the practicalities and consequences of values is important if a green is to be managed to performance standards. Whilst it might appear a good idea to have a perfectly pristine surface, what this would mean in practice is that as soon as there is a slight blemish from a disease or pest, for example, then immediate action would need to be taken to rectify this otherwise that individual performance standard would not be achieved. If physical and financial resources are not available, then it is unrealistic to plan for very high standards in practice. If it is unlikely these are to be achieved, then there is little point utilising performance standards as a means of measuring the effectiveness of grounds management activities. An honest conversation is needed within clubs as to what is realistic with available or proposed resources, and what is actually acceptable to club members: providing options - especially costed ones - for different levels of quality helps members to better manage expectations.

Values within a performance standard and relevant grades do need to be realistically achievable, on a consistent basis, over time. Having values that are unrealistic to a maintained in natural (albeit human managed) environment which is subject to wear and which are routinely not achieved in practice will devalue the use of performance standards.