GOLF Team talk
DANIEL HARDY - MECHANIC
How did you first make the decision to start a career in the sports turf industry? I was fortunate enough to have family who already worked in the industry, I originally started part-time on the golf course while I was at sixth form. Once I finished sixth form, I was then offered a role in the workshop being a full-time mechanic working alongside the Head Mechanic Nick.
What are the biggest challenges you face? There are lots of different challenges I face everyday such as solving new problems or working on a machine I’ve never worked on before. Luckily Nick possess a lot of mechanical knowledge and is always there to guide me if I need help.
Are you currently working towards a qualification or taking out any extra training? I completed my NVQ Level 2 Land-based Service Engineering qualification at Askham Bryan College last year.
What do you enjoy most about the job? Being a mechanic there is a lot of diversity and each day there’s a new problem to be solved. The process of successfully diagnosing and fixing a problem is very satisfying.
What do you find the most difficult part of the job? Has to be the early mornings; I’ve never been a morning person. LOL.
How could the industry as a whole help support and help further your career? I feel the industry needs to focus on providing enough resources for the younger generation. For example, there is no specific qualification for a “Golf Course Maintenance Technician” available in my area.
Do you attend industry shows or educational days? I have attended a couple BTME shows, I think shows like this are important for the industry as it allows you to meet new people and provide more opportunities.
Where do you see yourself in the future? In the future I see myself moving away and working abroad in a hotter climate. I may continue to work as a golf course mechanic, who knows? Time will tell.
Is there anyone person in the industry who has inspired you so far? I’d like to say a special thanks to Nick Scott as I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for him passing on his knowledge and guiding me through my apprenticeship. Honestly don’t know how he’s coped with me the past three years!
32 PC April/May 2020
Dan Hardy
and the contractors ready to go. So, as soon as John Adamson gave us the go-ahead in 2012, we started construction.” The new course was to be built on the existing five holes of the Cathedral course alongside a hundred acres of derelict farmland over the main Pittington lane road. The land was purchased eight years prior to starting the work. “A tunnel had to be built under the road to give access to the new land. We had one week to complete this work whilst the road was closed or we would incur big fines,” explains Roger. “The contractors did a great job and completed it on time. We built fourteen holes - the third to the sixteenth - on what was called Hill-Top Farm, with the first, second, seventeenth and eighteenth built on the original Cathedral course land.” Building the second course proved to be more challenging than the first. The farm was named Hill-Top Farm for a reason as it was sat on top of the brow of a hill. “Fifty acres of land you would class as ‘slightly
sloping back to the main road’,” exclaims Roger. “Then you literally fell over a cliff into the valley, and this land had not been farmed for the thirty-five years prior to us taking it on. When I first went in there with the tractor and flail, the grass and shrubbery was literally over the bonnet. We cut it down, as well as spraying it with glyphosate, and ‘farmed’ it for a few years just to try and clean it up. This meant that, the day we started construction, we could get straight in.”
“The biggest challenge we faced was discovering we were sat on a massive sand pile. When we started digging out one of the lakes on construction, I said to the guy on the job that I would be ‘back in two hours to see how he was getting on’. When I returned, it just looked like an enormous bunker.”
“All the site had been stripped of topsoil into big piles. The subbase was taken off and being moved to areas where we had to elevate the course from the road. One of
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