GOLF
It was a big decision, but I’m not daunted by big decisions. I think a lot of these things come down to research and making sure you’ve asked all the right questions and got the right team and finance involved
”
into a hybrid members club that is being run along business lines, making them a lot leaner, focused and targeted. The approach of using experts has been used throughout the entire process, from the initial team that visited Peter at The London Club on a fact-finding mission to Peter's own research into materials and machines for the course. Somewhat uniquely, Peter started his professional life with Reed International, a paper and publishing company, where he honed his skills in negotiating and working in a commercial environment; two skills that lend themselves to project management. His interest in horticulture had been present throughout his young life, and he helped maintain a four-acre Georgian garden every Sunday from the age of sixteen as one of his first jobs, and he continued to do so until he was twenty-three. A change in his position with Reed led to him leaving to pursue full- time studies at Merrist Wood College in Landscape Management, ultimately leading to him beginning work at The London Club following a spell in golf course construction. His formative years at Reed, and his
greenkeeping career, combined perfectly for
the task at Royal Norwich and played a pivotal role when it came to working with the course architects and selecting materials for this multi-million-pound project. “I came on board as the person who would sit down with Ross and look at the specifications and tune aspects of it to suit this locality. A good example of this is the rootzone. A decision had to be made, and we looked at various options with EGD of rootzone amendment; people stopped using peat with sand construction greens years ago, and they’ve tended to go down the route of green waste compost, but there are alternative non-organic amendments like zeolite and our chosen material, Profile porous ceramic.”
“This was one very crucial aspect and also where was the sand coming from to mix with the rootzone amendment because that was a significant cost to the project. Rootzone choice was going to be the key decision, as well as grass species on greens and the rest of the golf course.”
“Some of the rootzone research involved going abroad because no one had used Profile porous ceramic in the United Kingdom. The only projects I could find
nearer to the UK were a 10-year-old project in County Cork and the new Adare Manor project that opened last year. I met Alan MacDonald at Adare Manor, and also met Trevor Norris who constructed Castle Martyr in Cork, to get an idea of how 10-year-old greens had performed, whilst being able to look at the new greens at Adare Manor, so it was a perfect scenario.” With the specification in place, a contractor had to be appointed. A scoring system was used to judge candidates on categories such as financial stability, in- house or sub-contracted labour and previous experience. After this process, MJ Abbott was awarded the project, with their expertise in construction and irrigation installation proving pivotal.
Deciding on an irrigation system was another chance for things to be different from the norm.
“I went to Scandinavia and looked at Rain Bird, and I went to look at Toro systems down in the West Country, just wherever people were installing new ones,” Peter explained. “There were aspects to the specification I shaped, with some very specific ones to do with the irrigation control
26
PC June/July 2019
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