Thana City Country Club Making a Major Upgrade to the Greens!!

Thana City Country Club Making a Major Upgrade to the Greens with Asia’s First of its Kind Greens Re-Surfacing Project!

Greens are the most important part of a golf course, which arguably defines the best golf course in terms of a golfer’s expectations. That is the reason why most golf course maintenance teams spend a great amount of effort and budget in maintaining them to ensure every golfer enjoys smooth and fast greens. After nearly 30 years of operations, Thana City Country Club was faced with a major decision to renovate their greens to dramatically enhance the member and guest experience, facilitated by converting its aged Tifdwarf Bermuda greens to the newly developed warm season grass, Primo Zoysia.

Thana City will be the first facility in Thailand to transition to Primo Zoyzia, which we are sure will be an inspiration for other clubs to explore this groundbreaking move. This project has been undertaken due to the progressive decline in the surfaces of the old greens, which have succumbed to mutation over the years, this has negatively impacted the greens condition and playability, especially during the challenging annual wet season.

Primo Zoysia was chosen for the green re-grassing at Thana City Country Club because of its tropical climate tolerance, ability to thrive in low light and shade, also being less susceptible to disease. We fully expect the change to deliver impeccable putting surfaces 365 days a year providing golfers with smooth, consistent and fast greens, which is currently a rare commodity in Thailand, whilst resetting expectations from international tourists, members and guests as they experience a first for Thailand, with Primo Zoysia.

As the management company of the Thana City Country Club, Absolute Golf Services (AGS) always keeps up to date and embraces new technologies and inventions within the golf industry. Managing Director of AGS, James Shippey, expressed the excitement about this project, “The turf is amazing and demands much less proactive and reactive maintenance oppose to other turf varieties, the plant is specially engineered to thrive in our climate here in Thailand. We are confident this will be a game changer for Thana City Country Club, to have one of the newest innovations in terms of agronomic evolution, which will in turn transform the playing experience at the club. We didn’t take this decision likely, the turf has been tested in other locations within Southeast Asia and proven to perform extremely well in the tropical climate. We are expecting the green speeds to be between 10” – 13” throughout the year, which is very exciting!”

Thana City Country Club has spent an extensive period of time planning this project and will undertake the works without closing the golf course, during December 2021. We are forecasting the works to be completed within 25 days, with minimal disturbance to our valued members and guests. This work and timelines will ensure the long-term success of Thana City from an agronomic standpoint, delivering great surfaces and a reduction in operating expenses.

The onsite greens nursery was sprigged in May 2021. It is well established and almost ready for harvesting, even given the higher volumes of rain we have experienced over the past months. The entire re-grassing project is expected to be complete by the end of December 2021.