GOLF
I gave a year’s notice so I could have a year where there wasn’t much on, and I could quietly drift off towards retirement. But we got one of the biggest challenges that I’ve ever faced, which is dealing with the Covid-19 situation!
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lockdown trying to keep the course in good order with a very limited number of people.” “The other thing is that I fell in love with the place. Opportunities have come to move on, but I’ve always wanted to stay and carry on with what’s going on. It’s a lovely place to live, it’s a beautiful site, the members are lovely which is comparatively rare when I speak to greenkeepers at Harrogate and other golf clubs. Many people are living in a world of constant hassle and unreasonable demands. At Aldeburgh, I’m very lucky to be working for a very nice bunch of people who know how to do it right. Discerning golfers who know what they want and are very clear about it which makes the job of being course manager comparatively simple because, in all of the time that I've been here, the philosophy of the club in terms of the conditions and presentation of the course has remained the same. Obviously, the goalposts are moving in that the standards we are trying to achieve are going up, but the basic philosophy of it being firm, fast and true all year round golf hasn’t
At one point I considered working part time,
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maybe three days a week or something like that, but I don’t think I could because I’d end up just doing five
New Course Manager Nick Nottingham 36 PC October/November 2020 wavered in all of that time.”
“Then you get to the stage where you think I’ll happily stay here until I retire and, in two weeks, that will be it. I suppose as much as anything, the time seemed right. This is a demanding job, and I find myself more and more being utterly exhausted at the end of the golfing season. It’s a combination of all sorts of things. I've got lots of things that I want to do during my retirement, so it’s not like I fell out of love with greenkeeping or anything like that. I still like getting up in the morning, and I love being out here doing it. But we won the Golf Environment Award in 2019, and we had the Jacques Leglise trophy with the R&A, and it just seemed like a good time to bow out.” “Although, whilst going through this handover process over the last four weeks with Nick Nottingham who is taking over as Course Manager, I’ve questioned why I’m leaving. Especially now that there are some course developments with golf course architects Mackenzie and Ebert in the pipeline and possible changes to the golf
course and exciting times ahead. But then Nick is twenty-odd years younger than me, and the difference in energy levels is plain to see.”
“So there's no doubt that you can sort of get to a stage...” Mark stops to consider his words before continuing. “At one point I considered working part time, maybe three days a week or something like that, but I don’t think I could because I’d end up just doing five. It is a job that you think about all the time. I wake up in the morning, and I’m thinking about the golf course... and very often waking up in the night thinking about the golf course. You can’t get away from it. And that’s part of the joy of it, that it’s all consuming, but it can be exhausting, and you can get to the stage where you think your health might suffer if you keep going.” Sitting overlooking the course, there is a lot for Mark to be proud of. During his interview for the role, the club outlined their ambitions to host top level amateur tournaments, and that ambition has been achieved. To do that, certain aspects of the
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