Golf course consultant Paul Larsen talks about the extraordinary success he had in 2025 by rolling more and mowing less.

You’ve been a strong advocate for rolling more and mowing less. Could you give us a quick overview of how that went for you in 2025?

In the past I’ve often cut three or four days in a row and rolled on the same days or cut and rolled on alternate days. In 2025 I tried to do less cutting and rolling on the same day and cut one day, roll the next day at Lydd Golf Club in Kent. I’ve also been experimenting with lowering moisture content, which has helped me roll more and cut even less. At one point I think I was doing three days of rolling for every day of cutting, depending on competitions and so on. We found we could go three or even four days without cutting, which allowed me to raise the height of cut. We kept it at 5mm in 2025, but this winter we’ve gone up to 6mm and we’re going to try to keep to that every day in 2026 and roll more.

I did a little experiment on the putting green where I went 14 days without cutting, which was quite unique! I wanted to find out how far we can push the boundaries of rolling and what green speeds we were getting. We were getting nine on the stimp, sometimes 10, after several days of just rolling. I’m trying to do some more regimented trials on this with Dr [Thomas] Nikolai this year.

You’re working with fescue and bent, not poa greens. Do you think clubs with poa greens also benefit from rolling more and mowing less?

Yes. I’ve been working on a couple of greens that are bent / poa dominated at another course I work on in Kent. They’ve had success with alternating cutting and rolling, and during wintertime we’re rolling most days without cutting at all. We’re trying to figure out the highest height of cut we can go to while doing more rolling. Maybe we will need to work a growth regulator like Attraxor into the plan.

How much do you think rolling more and cutting less as a sustainable option can be replicated around the world with all the different weather, grass and staffing conditions?

I have worked abroad in Holland, and the conditions were similar to the UK. I would love to do rolling trials in the warmer climates, because we know it helps keep disease like dollar spot down. I think if the feeding programme and irrigation is right you could probably do the same as we’ve been doing here.

How would you describe the course and your role at Lydd?

Lydd is a links course, between Rye and Littlestone [in the southeast of England]. It’s got so much potential but not a lot of money was spent on it in the past. It’s been like a blank canvas for me to experiment with sustainable greenkeeping, because we haven’t had an awful lot of money to spend. I’ve had no choice but to get the fescue and bent grasses good. This year we’ve not suffered so much with worm casts and we’ve had great speeds.

The rolling has really helped with everything we do and it’s keeping costs down. We’ve only got two other guys on the team, and they buy into the idea of sustainability and ‘less is more’.
In 2024 we started rolling the tees every day to see if it would help with worm casting and without a doubt it really worked. We only had one roller and not enough time to keep doing it, but even six months later there were fewer worm casts where we’d been rolling.

What’s your opinion on Tru-Turf rollers? How do they stand out?

I stick to Tru-Turf rollers because they’re lightweight. I have found other rollers too heavy in the past; although since I’ve had the Tru-Turf I haven’t tried another brand. I’m hoping for a Tru-Turf robot roller soon!

What are your plans for 2026?

A few of the courses I’m managing are really focusing on rolling now. We haven’t cut some of the greens for quite a while. Parkland courses get especially wet in winter, so we just try to get round the course with the roller. Our policy is to keep rolling in the winter to keep the greens dry and firm.