If you caught The Open at Royal Birkdale, you saw the world’s best players firing tee shots onto fairways that looked less like Augusta and a lot more like a freshly toasted slice of sourdough.

For years, we’ve been conditioned to expect pristine, emerald-green carpets as the norm. But with prolonged dry spells becoming the standard, expecting hyper-irrigated grass during a drought isn’t just unrealistic – it puts an unsustainable burden on the land and the people who care for it.

A sunburnt fairway isn’t dying. It’s resilient turf doing what it was built to do. If the world’s best can play the biggest tournament of the year on golden brown grass, it’s good enough for your Sunday medal.

Up here high on Portsdown Hill, that same dry period has taken hold. The course is playing hard and fast, with the chalk-backed soil letting drives roll out far beyond where they’d usually stop. While the fairways are fully embracing that golden, baked-out roll, our greens have held up remarkably well.

That resilience is down to some quiet, tireless work behind the scenes.

Our irrigation system has been working overtime to provide much-needed hydration straight to the putting surfaces where it matters most. Earlier this season, our greens maintenance program went exceptionally well, with a rapid recovery. As part of that, we ran a successful overseeding program – introducing fresh seed deep into the solid profile of our putting surfaces. That investment is paying off now, keeping the greens true while the rest of the land bakes in the sun.

Behind the curtain, our full fleet of machinery just came off its recent summer service, ensuring everything is tuned up and ready as we prepare for the back end of the season.

So next time you stand on the tee – if you see more beige than green beneath your feet, don’t complain. Enjoy the extra thirty yards of run and fun and go high-five your greenkeeper.

After all, fortune favours the firm.