GOLF Getting Personal
Duncan Campbell - somewhat understandably, not a fan of rain!
Who are you? Duncan Campbell, Head Greenkeeper at Ilkley Golf Club.
Family status? Married, two sons.
Who’s your hero, and why? My father. He taught me right from wrong.
What’s been the highlight of your grounds career so far? Hosting the Northern Counties Ladies Final.
If your younger self saw you now, what would they think? He would be proud of my achievements.
Which famous people wind you up? Boris Johnson. What job would you love, other than your own? Farming.
What was the most embarrassing moment in your life? Pass!
What is your favourite film? Smokey and the Bandit. What scares you? Snakes.
What would your autobiography be called… and who would play you in the film? ‘It be reyt’ … Sean Bean.
What is your favourite sport? Rugby. What would you cast into Room 101? Rain!
Which historical time and place would you most like to visit? Back to the 60s.
Do you have a lifetime ambition? To live long enough to draw my pension.
Which three people, living or dead, would you invite to a dinner party? Peter Kay, Paddy McGuinness and Tiger Woods.
What’s the best advice you have ever been given? Be confident in yourself.
What’s your favourite piece of trivia? A bolt of lightning contains enough energy to toast 100,000 slices of bread.
What’s your favourite smell? Roast Beef.
Which three albums would you take to a desert island? Status Quo, Elton John and Rod Stewart.
What’s the daftest work-related question you have ever been asked? Is the course open? (When the course is totally flooded!)
What’s your favourite piece of kit? Baroness Hand Mower. How would you describe yourself? Laid-back and honest.
What is the single most useful thing you could tell a 16- year-old greenkeeper? It’s a good life, but you will never get rich.
What talent would you like to have? To play piano. 30 PC February/March 2021 Silt piled up after the November floods
drainage levels are governed by the river and are hellishly low. Richard Sharrock from Danvic Turf Care Ltd has just recently been in to look at a drainage job for me, and I have just learned from him that the river authorities take a dim view of you draining directly into the river. They want it to flow into a slow-release area, so if we want to drain a fairway, we will have to drain it into a pond or wetland that then releases the water slowly into the river.”
As we talk through Duncan’s maintenance regime on the greens, one thing stands out to me is that he insists on hand mowing them all year round. “We cut with Baroness LM56 hand mowers; we do not use a triple. We do have one in the shed for emergencies or if we are pushed for time, but it is very rare. Three lads will cut the greens seven days a week in summer at the height of 4mm. In the winter, we will cut when needed, lifting the height to 6mm. We do not undertake as much scarifying as we used to; we moved towards using the verti-cutters once a month, but we have recently been using the rotary and zig-zag brushes. I do not see the need to stress out the plant, especially at the start of the year when it is already under stress from its natural environment. After the floods in February last year, we did not get any growth until the back end of June.” “Aeration wise, we have a Toro ProCore, and we try and spike them once a month with 8mm tines at full depth. I am a great believer that, if you are spiking, you want to go down as deep as possible. A lot of greenkeepers
now focus on the surface and not what is underneath. If we are verti-draining, again, we will go to full depth. You have to be brutal in your approach and get as much out of it as possible. That is why they design and manufacture tines as long as they do. It may be a bit old school now with the advancements in machinery, but I like to do a lot of slitting, which we have done for years using our old Huxley slitter attached to the Cushman. We have to have blades made up for it, and they are big and brutal and give us a depth of seven to eight inches. I am a great believer in slitting as much as you can when it is dry from September to October. Once we get to the end of October, we do not touch the greens with any spiker until the end of March. The key when aerating the greens is to vary the depths to avoid creating a pan. A machine I have been very impressed with is the
Charterhouse OxyShot which we have been hiring in to treat our problem areas, and it has done a great job.” Duncan likes to take
advantage of the school summer holidays. As soon as they come around at the end of July, he carries out his renovations on the greens as he believes most people seem to go on holiday then. “This is the best time for us to make a mess of them so to speak and, by the time everyone is back in September, they are back to their best. We have used the Graden on the greens for the last six years, but we missed last year for the first time. The process has benefitted our greens tremendously with them being push-ups.”
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