Environmental Awareness

• Ensure that only the minimum amount of nutrition is applied to greens and fairways
• Implement an ongoing aeration programme to combat disease and compaction
• Use natural methods of cultivation in preference to chemicals and pesticides
• Conserve heather and marram grass habitat
• Select and encourage the correct native grass
• Preserve and encourage wild flora and fauna within the rough
• Keep greens and approaches as firm as is possible
• The sandy soil and springy turf was really unsuitable for any kind of farming with the exception of grazing livestock – it was however for the game of golf which was becoming popular. In fact many of the locations where links courses located needed little or no work to turn the land into a golf course. The courses merely followed the existing contours of the land, while animal burrows worked well as bunkers!
  
  The earliest links were completely natural, no fertilizers, no watering systems – just cut the grass and let the weather do the rest. In its truest form the fairway grasses often die away in the summer months – particularly in a dry summer – but they are hardy species that come back quickly once the rain returns.

Kirkistown Castle Golf Club is committed to the implementation of proactive measures to help protect and care for the local, and global environment. Some of the activities we take part in, in order to help minimise our impact on the environment include:

* We take pride in our natural setting and environment and actively promote and protect the natural flora and fauna of the links and the wildlife habitat therein.
* We train our employees on environmental awareness.
* We encourage our employees to work in an environmentally responsible manner.
* We have a Green Team that consists of a member of staff from each department.
* We continuously seek to improve our environmental performance.
* We actively recycle waste and have significantly reduced waste to landfill and we continue to minimise this.
* We work to minimise the use of energy, water and fossil fuels.
* We support the community in which we operate and engage in Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives.
* We work with and support a range of outdoor and conservation bodies in helping to preserve our historic sites and wildlife environment.
* We source much of our food ingredients locally.
* Our future development plans will include measures to reduce our environmental impact.
* We align ourselves with the Green Tourism Business Scheme as an indicator of our environmental commitment and focus.

We are currently awaiting accreditation by the Green Tourism Business Scheme. If you feel there is anything we could do to further reduce our environmental impact please contact our Greens Team Representative through the Club Manager.