Golf
GETTING Personal...
Simon Johnson - a Cornish Rattler in Ibiza sounds just the ticket!
Who are you? Simon Johnson, Head Greenkeeper at Falmouth Golf Club.
Family status? Married, with two stepdaughters.
Who’s your hero and why? Sir Alex Ferguson.
What would you change about yourself? Eat less carbohydrates!
What’s your guilty pleasure? Cornish Rattler cider.
What do you drop everything for? The wife, Sue.
What’s been the highlight of your career so far? Becoming Head Greenkeeper at Falmouth. Glass half full or half empty? Half full. Climate change - fact or fiction? Fiction.
What’s your favourite season? The cricket season! (or spring). What are your pet peeves? Losing at sport.
If you could go anywhere right now, where would it be? Ibiza.
What’s the best part of your job? Looking at the course on Friday afternoons knowing it is as good as we can get it.
… and the worst? Coming in on Monday mornings to find someone disagreed!
Do you have a lifetime ambition? To learn to play my guitar that Sue bought me three years ago and has been out of the box once.
Who wouldn’t you like to be? A Liverpool fan.
Favourite record, and why? The Jam’s Town Called Malice. Takes me back to my youth.
Who would you choose to spend a romantic evening with? Sue, the wife.
If you won the lottery, what is the first thing you would do? Go on holiday.
If you were to describe yourself as a musical instrument, what would you be and why? A Bass guitar, not at the front, but always necessary.
What’s the best advice you have ever been given? Live like someone left the gate open.
What’s your favourite smell? Pasty.
What do you do in your spare time? Heavily involved in our local cricket club, Mount Ambrose, and watching Redruth RFC play rugby.
What's the daftest work related question you have ever been asked? “It’s taken me twenty minutes to dig my car out from the snow and ice and when I get here the course is closed. Why?”
What’s your favourite piece of kit? Wiedenmann Terraspike.
What three words would you use to describe yourself? Honest, conscientious and thoughtful.
What talent would you like to have? To play that guitar!
What law/legislation would you like to see introduced? I would like to see benefits paid in vouchers and not in cash. People that work for a living should not be worse off than those on benefits.
32 I PC APRIL/MAY 2014
Falmouth’s greenkeeping team l-r: Paddy Ibbotson, Mark Moore, Shaun Cuffin, Keith Kellow and Simon Johnson
“
Because we operate an 8.00am tee time, we can keep ahead of golfers and don’t normally get in their way - or them in ours!!
fortnight throughout the season, if competitions and conditions allow.” “The tees are cut twice a week at 12mm with our old greens mower, a Jacobsen GPLEX III in the summer. We find that, with very small tees, this mower doesn’t damage the playing surface as much when turning sharply. We use tee mats in the winter when growth slows. There is no specific time we start and finish using these, it is just when conditions don’t allow us to use the grass tees.” “The approaches are also cut twice a
week, using the Toro 3100 set at 12mm. Fairways are cut with our John Deere 3235c at 18mm. We have to cut fairways twice a week for several months of the year and, with the mild conditions we have at Falmouth, we can find ourselves cutting fairways in January and February.” “We have a Jacobsen Tri-King that we
are going to use this year to cut a band of semi-rough around the fairways at 25mm.” “The rough is cut at 75mm with our
Jacobsen AR 522 and has to be cut once a week during the growing season, which can last up to eight months!” “We have now purchased a new
Wiedenmann Terraspike XP which allows us to do more aeration. We usually solid tine and slit the fairways throughout the winter.” The greens are aerated monthly with
various depths of tine. We vary it by alternating with the Terraspike and our
sarrel roller. We currently aerate the tees twice a year but, with the new equipment, this will allow us to do this more often.” “My staff are trained to use all machines and do all tasks. This works well for us as it gives us variety and helps with holiday periods etc.” Where irrigation is concerned, Simon
explains that he has a somewhat antiquated system. “We have standpipes at every green for irrigation, if required, but due to the age of the pipework, which was put in during the 1950s by the members, plus the lack of pressure, we use our bowser to water the greens, although we are in the early stages of a rolling programme to provide new irrigation to all 18 holes. The water that goes onto the course comes from our borehole that fills a 90,000 litre tank at our greenkeeping compound. It normally takes one man around four hours to water the greens. We are lucky that, because the club uses tee times and everyone starts at the first tee from 8.00am, we can keep ahead of golfers and don’t normally get in their way - or them in ours!!” he states, with a smile. I ask Simon how important he
considers the local flora and fauna? “Cornwall is an environmentally rich county,” he comments. “We have several areas on the course that we use to encourage wildlife to flourish. We have several areas that have been set aside as wildflower areas in which we
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