Golf
committee. Colin simply attends five club committee
“There’s no greens
meetings a year and keeps them informed of what he’s been doing”
continues to be a top world links golf course that’s at one with nature. Trust is very much part of the way things are done at Muirfield. There’s no greens committee. Colin simply attends five club committee meetings a year and keeps them informed of what he’s been doing and what he proposes doing to keep the course looking and playing at its absolutely best. It puts its trust in the professional appointed, and the Club Secretary, to look after their course. For eighteen years that professional has been Colin. Their trust is repaid year after year.
Colin hand mows all of the greens, tees and aprons. The latter, he reminds us proudly, is a Scottish term and one that aptly describes what it actually is, shaped like an apron, one band around the whole green and four more at the front. They are not collars or approaches at Muirfield. Some courses cut aprons with a triplex but, at Muirfield, the practice is to cut with 18” John Deere 180C pedestrians. It blends in better, says Colin, and gives a much tighter cut. The greens themselves are hand cut using John Deere 180SL machines. Most
of the championship tees are pretty small and triplex cutting would be difficult, but even the bigger ones are hand mown with John Deere 220C walk-behinds. “It takes a little longer,” says Colin, “but presentation is everything and it’s worth it.” At the weekends, he will use John Deere 2500 triplex machines for the greens, but hand mowing predominates and Colin has eighteen pedestrian mowers all told working every day around the course.
In the run-up to the 2013 Open, hand mowing will be absolute. The greens at Muirfield are a sight to behold. The one tip Colin is prepared to impart is the regular application of a light, sandy topdressing. It takes all the blemishes out, he says. He never cuts below 4mm either. Fescue greens just don’t need to be super short to play well. During the cool, wet and fast growing days of June 2012 he was cutting at 4.5mm.
The Muirfield fairways are sanded in autumn and spring and then, once the growing season gets underway, it’s a matter of verticutting and grooming. Feeding is minimal, about once every five
to six years.
Of the new developments in equipment, Colin is a big fan of John Deere’s hybrid machines and he uses 7500 E-Cuts to keep the fairways in tip- top shape year round. “Taking away the hydraulics from the moving heads, and the consequent noise reduction, makes mowing much more comfortable for the man on board, and for everyone else,” he says. “The total elimination of oil leak risk is such a weight of a course manager’s mind too, especially when big tournaments are in the offing.” Technology is great, says Colin, but nothing beats just keeping your eyes open and observing what’s going on. Colin trusts his staff; he trusts his equipment; but top of the leader board for him is instinct. “Without it, you’re relying on formula greenkeeping, and that isn’t the way to get the best out of a links course,” he says. Other John Deere machines trusted by Colin at Muirfield include the 2500 E- Cut for weekend greens mowing, the 8000 E-Cut for larger tee and green surrounds, the 2653B Precision Cut for
16 PC APRIL/MAY 2013
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