Golf


Five BIGGA members and one GCSAI member from Ireland recently returned from the trip of a lifetime to the TPC Sawgrass course at Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. They had won the opportunity to join the maintenance team that helped prepare the course for the 2015 Players Championship, won by Rickie Fowler of the US after a three- way play-off.


In this article, GCSAI representative David Perdisatt from Naas Golf Club in Co Kildare recalls his ‘amazing’ experiences


TPC Sawgrass


Amazing! A


mazing. I feel that is an appropriate word to try to sum up the twelve days I spent away at TPC Sawgrass in Jacksonsville, Florida. I am still trying to come


to terms with the sheer scale of the place, and I am sure, long after this article is published, more memories of this wonderful experience will come back to me. I have tried to remember as much as I could! This opportunity came about last Autumn


whilst I was reading through the Greenside magazine and noticed the advertisement about the partnership between John Deere, the GCSAI and BIGGA to send volunteers over to represent their organisations at TPC Sawgrass in May. It required sending in a CV with an application letter detailing why you


16 I PC AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2015


should be selected to represent the GCSAI and John Deere. That evening, I tidied up my CV and tried


to sell myself as well as possible in the application letter. I wrote about my experience, my education and my future career goals in greenkeeping. I sent the CV away that night and had a long few weeks’ wait to see if I had been selected for interview. I was lucky to be on a shortlist of four


interviewed at Westmanstown Golf Club on the outskirts of Dublin in the first week in January. There were two GCSAI committee members and Chris Meacock from John Deere Limited (UK & Ireland), who had flown in for the interviews. I felt it went well and that I got across all I wanted to say about my


background and where I saw my career heading in the future. I was absolutely delighted to receive a phone call later that evening to inform me that I was the lucky one to be representing the GCSAI and John Deere at The Players Championship in the US in May. My first requirement was to attend the


BTME 2015 event at Harrogate, at the end of January, for a press photo call with the John Deere managers and the five successful candidates from the BIGGA regions. I met up with Steve Mitchell, who is John Deere’s public relations officer. He was great and just asked a few questions and jotted down a few quotes. It was great, as well, to finally meet up with the BIGGA guys who I would be travelling and working with, and I knew, after


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