The legend that is WALTER WOODS
This was meant to be a Days Off article. However, once I started
talking to Walter, I found myself asking many more questions which, in turn, led to more fascinating facts about his greenkeeping career.
And I never got to find out what his favourite TV programme or film
was! I don’t think he has the time. Golf seems to fill his life as much
today as it did when he started all those years ago.
LAURENCE GALE MSc
PERHAPS unusually for a Scotsman, I have a passion for cricket. I enjoy watching the sport at every opportunity. I thought the recent Ashes Test was brilliant, plenty of drama and skill from both sides. I have always been fascinated and interested in the game. It started way back in the late 1960’s when I emigrated to England to work in Nottingham, at Stanton on the Wold Golf Club. It was during this period that I had the opportunity to go to Trent Bridge and see exciting cricket being played by teams such as the West Indies. In those days the touring sides also visited a number of golf clubs in the area for relaxation. I had the good fortune to meet the legendary Gary Sobers, who I found to be the most humble and modest person I have ever met. He was as good with the golf club as he was with his bat. We played on several occasions and he always was able to drive
in Scotland at a small nine-hole golf course called Tillicoultry in Clackmannanshire. I then moved to Nottinghamshire to work at Stanton on the Wold Golf Course in 1968 and, three years later, on to the
Hollinwell course, Notts Golf Club near Mansfield, a
championship standard course with members who expected quality facilities.
I learnt a lot at Hollinwell, we set ourselves high standards. In those days we didn’t have greens committees or captains that bothered us. I often go back there now and see what changes they have made. As with most golf courses today, the standards of course preparation and maintenance have improved greatly due to the advances in
machinery technology and the education of greenkeepers. The start of this
revolution began in the mid 1970’s and coincided with my
appointment as Head Greenkeeper at St Andrews in 1974. There were some major
developments in machinery; triple mowers appeared on the scene, hydraulic
Hollinwell Golf Club near Mansfield -o one of Walter’s earlier courses
a ball 40-60 yards further down the fairway than me. My Greenkeeping
career started at home 26
driven mowers for fairways instead of trailed gangs, automatic irrigation systems were
introduced. And thanks to Jack McMillan, who introduced me to the vertidrain, the possibility to deep
aerate greens and tees quickly without disruption helped us produce better quality playing surfaces. During my twenty years at St Andrews I was fortunate to witness many changes. Golf was becoming more popular, television coverage was increasing, so there were greater demands for better standards as the whole golfing world tuned in to see the British Open Golf championships. Also at this time I became involved with Elmwood College, looking to employ and offer young aspiring greenkeepers an
opportunity to learn the skills of the trade at St Andrews. The better educated they became, the better skills they had to offer when working as crew on the course, it was a great learning environment for us all. When the major tournaments came to St Andrews I was able to call on these students and staff from surrounding clubs to help prepare the course. My fondest memories have got to be the four Open championships I prepared during my time there, all very different. The first in 1978, when Jack Nicklaus won, we were all really quite naive then, however we managed to get the course to perform its best, given the resources we had at that time. The 1984
Championship was rather different; there was not a lot we could do other than try to save the course because the weather was so hot. The course burnt up, and our main aim was to keep the greens alive. The conditions, being fast and hard, suited the winner, Seve Ballesteros.
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