By Toby Ingleton |
Foxhills Club & Resort in Surrey, England, is starting work on a £3 million ($4 million) transformation of its irrigation infrastructure to improve the quality, resilience and sustainability of its two golf courses.
The project will see more than 3,500 irrigation heads installed across the Longcross and Bernhard Hunt layouts, as well as major upgrades to pumps, reservoirs and water storage systems.
The club expects the work to lead to an approximate 20 per cent increase in irrigation efficiency, while also reducing irrigation cycle times, significantly increasing rainwater harvesting capacity and enabling greater use of stored and harvested water across its 400-acre estate.
“The irrigation infrastructure is fundamental to everything we do from a course management perspective,” said Sean Graham, director of golf at Foxhills. “By investing now, we can give our team much greater control and precision over how we use water, improve the consistency of our playing surfaces and make the courses more resilient to the conditions we know we will increasingly face.
“Importantly, this is not simply about keeping the courses green. It is about using water intelligently, making better use of what we can harvest and ensuring we are managing the estate responsibly while continuing to deliver the quality of playing conditions our members and guests expect.”
The club will use products and systems from Rain Bird and the project will be delivered in partnership with contractor MJ Abbott and irrigation consultants Irritech. The first phase, in winter 2026, will include renovations to the reservoir and a complete rebuild of the pump stations and tanks, before installation moves onto the courses in October 2027.
Foxhills expects its new investment to increase irrigation efficiency by approximately 20 per cent (Photo: Foxhills Club & Resort)
Derrick Johnstone, golf course and estates manager at Foxhills, said: “The precision and flexibility this system gives us will completely transform how we manage the courses throughout the growing season.
“We needed to be able to target irrigation exactly where it is needed. Partnering with Rain Bird for this project was an easy choice; their industry-leading products, including CirrusPRO and IC System, with its integrated control technology, provide the advanced control and software support we need to improve efficiency and optimise irrigation. Their expertise and support will be vital to the success of the project, and we’re looking forward to working closely with their team.”
On-course work will be phased across two winters, with only one or two holes affected at any one time. A mole-plough installation method will be used to reduce the requirement for major trenching and help preserve playing surfaces during construction.
The sixteenth hole on the Longcross course was redesigned as part of project completed in 2024 (Photo: Foxhills Club & Resort)
The latest investment follows work in 2023-24 overseen by European Golf Design to improve bunkering, greens, drainage, irrigation, tee placement and overall strategy on the Longcross course. The club also completed drainage work on its Bernhard Hunt layout in 2025.