GOLF


T


wo miles north of the town centre, Scarborough North Cliff Golf Club has a real seaside feel to it. The course starts on the clifftop. It then moves inland, threading its way between trees and spinneys, with lovely views of the North Yorkshire Moors, before returning to the cliff top for the final three holes. Although the club dates back to 1909, the present course was designed by James Braid and first opened its doors to golfers in 1928. It spans 6,425 yards with a par of 70. The course is sufficiently undulating to be interesting without being excessively hilly. It is a tough but fair test for golfers of all abilities.


On the opposite side of the road to the clubhouse - which has excellent views of the Yorkshire coastline - is the greenkeepers’ sheds which, unfortunately, do not share the same vistas. This is where, on a pleasant afternoon, I sat down with Colin, who has served the club for the past eighteen years,


to talk about his varied career, including his time working in Holland.


Colin grew up in Scotland and found himself ‘accidentally’ getting into the sports turf industry whilst at school. He had no interest in golf whatsoever and admitted he didn’t know a lot about the game. “One of the schoolteachers indicated that there was an apprentice greenkeeper position available at a local golf club. I always intended to go into engineering and follow my dad’s career, but there was nothing available at the time, and I had to do something. With the Harburn Golf Club being only two miles from where I lived, I went for it and got the job.”


“I worked my way up to first assistant then, after eight years, moved to Uphall Golf Club to become head greenkeeper. I was still pretty young. Six years later, I was offered a job at a new course in Holland - Golf Club Almeerderhout - where I spent ten years, firstly as head greenkeeper and


then course manager. I came back to the UK in 2006 and joined the Northwood Golf Club in northwest London where I spent six years. I didn’t take to living down south, so I decided to move back up north and applied for several jobs before I got the position here at Scarborough. I have been here ever since and will probably see my time out here as I can retire in around five years’ time.” Even though the course is on the coast, it is a parkland layout sitting predominantly on clay but with a reasonable covering of topsoil. It has drainage problems much like all the clubs he has worked for, except Almeerderhout. “That club is built on reclaimed land in the Polder, so it was about six metres below sea level, which provided different kinds of problems. The soil we worked with had no stones in it; it was bizarre. It was almost like a silt soil and was incredibly fertile. I have never seen trees grow so fast in my life.”


Almeerderhout was built just before


I remember a lecturer telling me that it’s a marvellous industry I have come into. ‘It’s a boom industry,’ he said. ‘Everybody is going to be playing golf in years to come, and it is perfect for people when they retire as the


retirement age will get lower. It will go from strength to strength.’ Sadly, the opposite is true


PC February/March 2020


35


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