Links Golf in Poland?

On April 1st Black Water Links was opened for play. Designed by the EIGCA member Caspar Grauballe and constructed by this years new EIGCA Silver partner, All Golf Services – a Polish based golf course construction company. This was the second time the two companies have worked together. The previous project was Ukraine’s Royal Kiev Golf Club, which was designed by Hawtree Design Ltd with Caspar being the on-site architect.

The site includes an 18 hole championship golf course, a 2000 m² putting green and a 6-hole golf academy.

Black Water Links faced many obstacles on its way to development. The Golf Course was developed by a golf enthusiast and businessman Andrew Wentland. The decision to move forward with his first golf development came just before the outbreak of the pandemic. The outbreak of COVID-19 came with many uncertainties, those for the safety of the people working on site, but also the uncertainty of the global economic situation due to lockdowns and the collapse of the logistic system.

The decision was made quite early on in the pandemic that the project would move forward with strict guidelines put in place to ensure the safety of all involved. Not one person contracted COVID-19 during the entirety of the construction process.

These obstacles proved to motivate all people and partners involved to show the industry in Poland and across Europe that projects could be developed safely and efficiently regardless of the pandemic.

Along with a Rain Bird IC irrigation system with double row fairway and back to back greens using RB702 and 752 rotors – All Golf Services also installed Poland’s first EcoBunkers and ProBunker Liner.

With material shortages becoming more of an issue Rain Bird Irrigation products managed to secure and deliver all the necessary components to get the irrigation system operational in a timely manner. This was a crucial part of the construction process as Black Water Links is a golf course that is “fuelled” by grey water coming from a local water treatment plant located 1 km from the golf course. This was the second time All Golf Services was involved in a grey water project, the previous being Twin Chapels Golf Resort in Prague designed by EIGCA member Jonathan Gaunt.

The Championship course greens were seeded with Tour Pro creeping bent supplied by EIGCA Bronze Partner, Semilas Fito. The Academy course greens were turfed using Tour Pro creeping bent, which was grown on All Golf Service’s sod farm a year in advance.

Fairway seed selection was carefully planned by Josep Cirera and also provided by Fito. This was an important factor to select salt tolerant species, because of the grey water the course relied on for its irrigation

Black Water Links is located in Tarnowo Podgorne – near Poznan one of Poland’s fastest growing cities.