Golf
GETTING Personal...
Neil Ballingall - don’t leave your golf clubs lying around!
Who are you? Neil Ballingall, born January 1963, and proud to be Golf Course Superintendent at Fairmont St Andrews.
Family status? Married to Susan, two daughters, Jenni and Nikki; two step daughters, Jessica and Caitlin and a step son Aidan; two dogs, Rio and Billy; one cat, Mino, and one Guinea Pig called the Baby Jesus.
Who’s your hero and why? My dad, I always wanted to be just like him.
What would you change about yourself? Could do with being younger.
What’s your guilty pleasure? Golf course books and collecting golf clubs.
What’s been the highlight of your career so far? I have been fortunate to have had a few and wouldn’t pick one ahead of any of them.
What are your pet peeves? Laziness, people being late and not caring how it affects others.
If you could go anywhere right now, where would it be? White sandy beach on a Caribbean island.
What's the best part of your job? Fresh air, sense of achievement, preparing for competitions.
… and the worst? Waiting on decisions.
Do you have a lifetime ambition? To be in charge of an Open.
Favourite record, and why? Rush 2112, if I could play electric guitar I'd like to play it like this.
Who would you choose to spend a romantic evening with? Definitely my wife.
If you won the lottery, what is the first thing you would do? Buy a house closer to work.
If you were to describe yourself as a musical instrument, what would you be and why? Saxophone - relaxed and easy going but can be heard if needed.
Which three people, living or dead, would you invite to a dinner party? Will Ferrell, Seve
16 I PC JUNE/JULY 2015
Ballesteros and Jesus (just in case we run out of wine).
Do you have any bad habits? Of course not, although my family might say different.
... or any good ones? Plenty, although my family might say different.
If you could be anyone for a day, who would it be and why? Bill Gates, and give all his money to charity.
Do you go to bed worrying about the next day's workload? Never have and hopefully never will.
What are you reading at the moment? Weems Witch and Largo Untold by Leonard Low.
What’s the best advice you have ever been given? Don’t eat yellow snow.
What's your favourite smell? Indian curry.
What do you do in your spare time? Golf, walk my dogs.
What's the daftest work related question you have ever been asked? “When do you think the fog will lift?”
What’s your favourite piece of kit? Stevens POGO, my Bernhard grinders.
What three words would you use to describe yourself? Easygoing, enthusiastic, dedicated.
What talent would you like to have? To be a great public speaker.
What law/legislation would you like to see introduced? Any politician found wilfully lying for their own or their party’s gain must be imprisoned - that should release about 600 jobs.
Stunning coastal scenery
one behind the other. Both can take thirty bays. We also have three Envirobunkers around our two practice chipping greens and a 1000m2
practice putting
green.” “Any work that is considered
‘major’ will go out to tender but, if I am given the budget and manpower, I will do the work in-house. Any specialist help we may require comes from the STRI, contractors MJ Abbott, Scottish Natural Heritage and the Scottish Golf Environmental Group.” “The courses are what I
describe as ‘coastal’ - we sit approximately two miles east of St Andrews up on a marine plateau, which gives us amazing views back to the town and across the bay to the Angus coastline and Carnoustie.” Neil describes the soil profile on the greens and tees as sand - “they are excellent” - with the greens built to USGA spec. The fairways are clay; “which has its challenges,” he confesses. “We have storm drains on
both courses. Drainage was upgraded on Torrance in 2008 to incorporate laterals to the storm system. We have a wall to wall Rainbird irrigation system on Nimbus 2.” Asked if the the course
suffered from any regular natural occurrences, such as flooding, high winds, excessive snowfall, frosts and drought, his reply was succinct; “it’s Scotland - all of the above!” “We actually close the
courses in frost. To cut fairways down to a reasonable height to make frost greens would see us lose grass coverage. We benefit from not having a membership, so it’s unlikely someone would pay to play on winter greens anyway. Protecting the greens
also gives us the best possible surfaces going in to the spring.” “Communication on a daily
basis is given to the golfers through our Proshop staff. Any proposed works are communicated to our reservation agents so they can inform golfers at the time of booking.” “We are exclusively Toro for
cutting machinery, with some of the aeration and utility vehicles also from Toro. Our daily utility vehicles and tractors are Kubota.” Neil details the maintenance regimes as follows:
- Greens summer: 4.5mm pedestrian Toro 1000, 4mm Toro 3250 triple
- Greens winter: 6mm pedestrian Toro 1000, 5.5mm Toro 3250 triple
- Tees and aprons: all year 9mm pedestrian Toro 1600, 8mm Toro 3250 triple
- Fairways: all year 14mm Toro 5510
- Semi rough and tee surrounds: all year 32mm Toro 3500
- Rough: all year 75mm Toro 4700
- The greens are reduced to 4mm and pedestrian cut for tournaments and a 6mm green collar is added - all other heights stay the same. This gives a greenspeed of around 10’, which is more than fast enough for an exposed site
- Greens are aerated regularly using the Toro ProCore 660, with either hollow or solid tines. Tees are cored twice yearly using the same machines
- Soil samples are taken from
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