Some tees have been enlarged to cope with increased traffic
round. No temporary greens are ever used.
The staff start earlier in the summer months, working 6.00am-2.30pm and one hour later in the winter (7.00am- 3.30pm). Howard always gets in an hour before his staff to check on the weather and plan the work for the day. The club hosts many competitions and society days. On the day of my visit they were hosting their Seniors Open event, so the staff were in even earlier, starting at 4.30am and working until 11.00am, which allowed them to get the course fully prepared before play started. As the saying goes, if you look after your equipment it will look after you. Apart from a couple of items, all the machinery is Toro; some £500,000 worth. Howard cannot fault it for reliablity and, he says, the service back up is second to none. “You might pay more for the
An ESD Waste2Water washdown facility has been an asset
equipment, but you get it back in the long term in performance and reliability.” “The machinery is fully serviced in house after every 100 hours of work,” says Howard, “and they are greased and cleaned after use. A few years ago we invested in a Waste2Water washdown facility, and that has been a great asset.” “We have a five year rolling
programme to replace machinery” explains Howard, “but the lads have looked after the machinery so well, we are getting another two-three years out of it. We now have a considerable fleet of Toro machinery, which has given us back up for most of our big machines, should the need arise.”
As always, when I visit clubs I like to
look around the course as soon as I arrive to take the all those important pictures that show the quality of the
course and the work being carried out. Howard was keen to show me the condition of the course and, as you would expect on a competition day, it was looking immaculate; not a blade of grass was out of place. The greens were exceptional in colour and firmness and were running at 10.5 on the stimpmeter. Howard measures green speed every week. “They rarely go below 9.5 on the stimp in the summer months,” Howard says, “and 8.5 in the winter. For competitions we like to get them running between 10.5 and 11.” The greens are very smooth and fast because of the maintenance regime Howard has perfected. It is, if you like, the much discussed ‘Greg Evans’ theory. “With the greens being soil pushed up, with no drainage installed, we have to rely on their natural draining ability, which has been helped by the heavy
BSH Grade ‘A’
grass seed mixtures. Make a great approach.
For an excellent range of high quality fertilisers and seeds designed to meet the specific needs of the amenity industry, simply buy direct from the specialists at
www.bshamenity.com
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