Jim was Andy Ralphs, now Head Greenkeeper at Delamere, and we became good friends and still are today. I left Delamere, finished my college, and went into golf course construction for a couple of years, mainly because I was nosey and wanted to see how courses were built. I then returned to work for Andy at Delamere, for three years, as the Deputy Head Greenkeeper until I saw an opening for a Course Manager. The lucky club was Lymm, a parkland course in Cheshire, built on a mix of old Mersey river bed and the sand, gravel spoil from the Manchester Ship Canal. So, in the May of 2000, at 24 years of age, I travelled off into the sunset and straight into the Dragons Den that is Golf Course Management. Lymm was typical of courses managed in that area at that time. Greens kept


green, lush and stripey meant the members were happy. Greens that were quickly watered at the first swallow of summer kept the members happy, and greenkeeping staff the members never saw on the course, spoiling their round, kept them even happier. They certainly didn’t want any aeration and were quite happy resting the greens over winter. They were annual meadow grass, good for 4-5 months of the year and requiring a lot of babysitting and expensive inputs to keep them to an acceptable playing standard. I thought things could do with a change for the better.


I was realistic. I knew we would never get to the fescue surfaces of the classic links, but I thought a bit more bent would come in handy. After all, the world needs a little more bent grass. I spoke to the members and told them what I


wanted to achieve, how it would be done and how long it would take. In the year before my tenure they had


reconstructed a green, the 2nd, as it was failing. I knew that, with a little bit of TLC, the rest of the greens could be improved with good old fashioned, austere greenkeeping. The greens were nearing a hundred years old and they were contemplating a full rebuild. Who says a golf green has a sell-buy-date? Your grasses on your greens are a


direct reflection of how you manage your soils. I wanted to give the old greens a chance by creating freer draining profiles through sustainable practices. At this point, with a potentially huge cost for a rebuild, levied from the members, the club knew they had problems and were willing to trust me to do my thing. I say the club, meaning the club council and the officers of the club.


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