From milk to members...


Portmore Golf Club are the winners of the 2010 Golf Environment Award. Here, father and son, Colin and Josh Webber, chart the move from poa pudding greens to successful sustainable methods.


Peter Britton reports I


t had been some years since I had taken the long and winding road across country to Barnstable in North Devon and I was expecting my journey to be somewhat


tiresome. So, imagine my surprise when I was greeted with the A361 link road from the M5 to the pretty little holiday town.


The new(ish) road has carved its way


through spectacular countryside on the southern edge of Exmoor and, what used to be a journey time of around four hours, has been slashed to just over two. The reason for my journey was to visit Colin Webber, owner, managing director, course manager and chief cook and bottle washer at Portmore Golf Club, the latest winner of the STRI Golf Environment Awards. “I am gobsmacked” he states. “Imagine my little club winning this award the year after St. Andrews. It’s a stunning achievement for all those involved in the club.”


The seeds of Portmore Golf Club


were planted in 1993 with the building of a twelve bay driving range on land that was owned by Colin. At the time, he was running one of the most intensively managed dairy farms in the UK; “in the top 2% of dairy producers in the country” he says. However, the ‘Michael Fish’ hurricane of October 1987 saw most of the farm buildings flattened. “At one point we were outside trying to hold the roof of the dairy down. We failed. It was a very scary moment.” Coupled with negative milk quotas, which basically meant that the cost of milk production was more than the sale price, and new European rules on the storage of silage and slurry, Colin took the decision to get out of farming. “I looked at a number of options, including a dry ski run, but eventually decided that golf was the way forward,” he says.


By 1994 the driving range had grown to twenty-four bays and, by 1995, Colin was arguing with the local council about public access. Once that was


resolved Martin Hawtree was brought in to expand the facilities to include a “proper” 9-hole par 3 course - The Landkey - with the longest hole being 249 yards. This was followed by the front nine of the Barum course in 1999 and the back nine a year later. Whilst all this was going on, Colin had undertaken a City & Guilds in Golf Greenkeeping and his son, Josh, had also entered the profession, earning a BSc Hons in Sports Turf Science from Myerscough.


Josh has also worked at Loch Lomond Golf Club and participated in the Ohio State University’s exchange programme, where he was seconded to work at Boca West Country Club and also Valhalla Golf Club for seventeen months, where, at the latter, he gained a zone leader’s position, responsible for holes 5, 6 and 7 during his placement and throughout the 2008 Ryder Cup. Not bad for a twenty-two year old! As well as Colin and Josh, the club employ two greenkeepers, Stuart Morgan and Andrew Reay, and Colin’s


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