Gleneagles’s New Golf Courses Manager

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Gleneagles’s New Golf Courses Manager: Gleneagles, the iconic Scottish hotel and sporting estate, has announced the appointment of Craig Haldane as its new Golf Courses Manager.

South African Craig, a well-known figure in the global golf industry, joins Gleneagles from Emirates Golf Club, Dubai, where he held the position of Director – Golf Course Maintenance, and had led golf course operations at the iconic Middle East venue for the past 11 years.

Gleneagles's New Golf Courses Manager

Previous to this, Haldane’s international experience included senior roles at Nad Al Sheba Golf Club, Dubai; Riffa Golf Club, Bahrain; Ria Bintan Golf Club, Indonesia; and Fancourt Hotel, South Africa.

Haldane arrives at Gleneagles as it prepares for the staging of two significant tournaments over the next 18 months – the inaugural European Golf Team Championships on The PGA Centenary Course this August and The Solheim Cup 12 months later – as well as the centenary of The King’s Course next year.

The James Braid-designed King’s Course will also welcome the 100th playing of the Scottish Stroke Play Championship this year, while The Queen’s Course will see the second PING Scottish Mixed Championship.

Commenting on this important announcement, Gary Silcock, Director of Golf at Gleneagles, said: “I’m incredibly excited by Craig’s appointment and his global experience and expertise will be a huge asset as we continue to invest in our golf business and customer experience.

“His industry knowledge and tournament preparation skills – The Majlis Course at Emirates Golf Club stages the European Tour sanctioned Omega Dubai Desert Classic each year – will be invaluable. Bringing together Craig’s experience with Scott Fenwick, our Director of Agronomy & Estates, who has 38 years of tournament expertise here at Gleneagles, is helping us create one of the strongest tournament teams in golf.

“We are now blending a growing international team with home-grown talent and Craig’s appointment will allow us to further develop our succession planning goals within our Greens Team Apprentice programme, which started two years ago.”

Haldane’s appointment at ‘The Glen’ coincides with the 850-acre Perthshire estate winning a host of industry accolades, including being named the ‘No.1 Golf Resort in Britain & Ireland’ by Golf World Magazine, and the ‘Ultimate Golf Resort’ at the recent 59club Awards.

Craig Haldane, said: “Gleneagles is one of the world’s great golf estates and the opportunity to work with Gary and the team to deliver the next chapter in its illustrious golfing history is something I am hugely looking forward to.

“The King’s, The Queen’s and The PGA Centenary Course are already recognised the world-over as exceptional golf experiences and I am confident that in my new role, and with the support of the incredible golf team at Gleneagles, we will be able to take the management, conditioning and preparation of all courses to the next level.”

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Foley ‘Up The Game’ In Russia

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Foley ‘Up The Game’ In Russia: Twenty Neary grinders are upping the game at training centres and stadiums across Russia for the 2018 World Cup.

In March 2018, well before the latest festival of football kicked off at the Luzhniki Stadium, Moscow, Foley United’s / Neary European sales representative, Arjen Spek, delivered a grinding workshop at a Turf Professional event in Moscow, organised by the Russian Neary distributor Unisaw, with 130 attendees getting hands on experience with the Neary machines while learning the benefits of grinding to OEM specifications.

Foley 'Up The Game' In Russia

Arjen Spek was delighted with the interest shown and the subsequent installation of twenty Neary Grinders across the World Cup venues in Russia,says “Neary distributor for Russia; Unisaw, organised this event very well in March and all the groundsmen from the stadiums and training grounds attended, with the main goal to educate / train and the Neary seminar “quality of cut and after cut appearance” was a high topic during this event.

“The already highly qualified groundsmen went home with the correct knowledge of how to maintain a cutting unit according OEM specification.”

32 teams will compete in 64 games at the World Cup with hundreds of training sessions taking place in-between. The heavy usage of the pitches at the stadia and training centres over the four-week tournament makes a first-class cut imperative and the quick high-quality grind offered by the Foley United brand of machines stands to be the reason a majority of venues opted for Neary.

Tests carried out by leading manufacturers have established that relief ground cylinders stay on cut up to three times longer than spun ground ones and require less horsepower to drive the unit, resulting in greater fuel efficiency and less stress on the hydraulic power systems. In addition, a relief ground cylinder will with stand the abrasive effects of topdressing far better than one spun ground because the relief edge on both the bed-knife and the cylinder allows the topdressing to clear the cutting blades easily, helping to prevent the dulling effect seen on spun only units.

Foley 'Up The Game' In Russia

Continual relief grinding also decreases the squeezing and tearing of the grass as the units get dull and, most importantly, it allows the cylinder to be returned to a factory specification perfect cylinder as quickly as possible.

The overall cleaner cut achieved by relief grinding gives a better after-cut appearance, increased recovery rate due to the clean cut of the grass and reduces the stress on components because less horsepower is needed to drive the cylinder.

Foley United and Arjen Spek are proud to play a part in the preparation of pitches for the world’s biggest tournament.

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Valagro Launches Master Supreme

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Valagro Launches Master Supreme: Valagro, a leading company in the production and marketing of biostimulants and other specialty nutrients, today presents their premium line of water-soluble fertilisers, Master Supreme, to the Chinese market at the NCIC Global Specialty Fertilizer Convention, a landmark event for the Chinese agricultural market, organised by China National Chemical Information Center (CNCIC).

Master Supreme is a new solution created by Valagro as a response to farmers’ needs and it is able to provide a guaranteed nutritional and biostimulant effect.     Master Supreme water-soluble fertilizers line has a high quality and purity and is enriched with biologically active compounds such as Ascophyllum nodosum extracts and humich compouds. These new formulations are the result of exclusive GeaPower technology (GEA 582) and guarantee greater and more efficient crop nutrition, naturally stimulating the physiological processes of the plant,ensuring quantitative and qualitative increase in production. The Master Supreme line offers 5 different solutions to ensure the correct supply of nutrients and biologically active substances in every phase of vegetative-productive development:

  1. Master Supreme Starter: the nutritional solution to improve the first stages of plant growth and to increase root development
  2. Master Supreme Development: formulated to nourish the plant while promoting vegetative development
  3. Master Supreme Flowering: the solution for stimulating metabolic activity, designed to nourish the plant during the flowering phase, it also stimulates metabolic activity
  4. Master Supreme Ripening: the presence of specific biologically active elements helps to improve the quality parameters of the fruit
  5. Master Supreme Balanced: the balanced formulation for every physiological process.

Valagro Launches Master Supreme

The launch for the Chinese market follows many events that have taken place in Italy, Turkey, Spain and Greece since 2017 with the involvement of farmers, technicians and the main distributors in these markets.

Derek Fang, Country manager Valagro (Shanghai) Trading Co. Ltd:
“Our Master Supreme Line can meet successfully the needs of the Chinese farmers. Often the Chinese agriculture is affected by nutritional imbalance during farmers planting. While using water-soluble fertilizers, more and more farmers begin to accept humic acid and seaweed fertilizer. All these above contributes to rise the demand for products which combine organic and inorganic fertilizer together in order to ensure a growing effective and sustainable nutrition to the crops. Also, this is in line with the demand for a growing sustainability in agriculture set by the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture (MOA): in fact within 2020 the MOA want to improve the fertilizer use efficiency by achieving over 40% of the fertilizer efficiency rate (+7% over 2013)”.

Rita Basile, Valagro product manager:
“Numerous tests have shown that the active ingredients present in the Master Supreme formulations help activate the physiological processes that optimise the performance of the plant. For this reason, the solutions of the Master Supreme line are able to guarantee a better absorption and use of nutrients using lower doses, compared to traditional methods of fertigation. This translates into a more precise and intelligent use of fertilisers, with a consequent increase in ROI for farmers, as well as a reduction in the environmental impact of crops. These aspects certainly represent an effective response to the needs of productivity and sustainability of the Chinese agricultural market.”

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Vandals Wreck Sports Ground

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Vandals Wreck Sports Ground: HB Regional Sports Park management and users are understandably unhappy that over the weekend hoons in vehicles have ripped up one of the grassed playing fields.

For what was probably a few minutes of “fun”, these vandals have destroyed weeks of work that went into preparing the field, ruined a season of sport that players would have had on the pitch and cost the park a lot of money.

Vandals Wreck Sports Ground

The damage is going to take the rest of the playing season to fix.

All for what? And why?

Rugby League Hawke’s Bay chairman Kevin Tamati has referred to the vandals as “idiots”. I doubt anyone will argue with him.

“While the vast majority of us would see the harm in wrecking a public playing field, there is a brainless minority that sees a grassed area as a chance to use their vehicle like a roundabout in a kids’ playground.

And any grassed area seems to be fair game … reserves and domains, picnic areas, river berms, school fields. I can’t understand someone that could delight in trashing what belongs to all of us. Where’s the pride in turning an expanse of grass into a swampy, muddy mess?

While all around us last weekend there were volunteers planting and beautifying our parks and reserves, why would you prefer to cause ugliness and ruin?

Not to mention that it’s illegal.

I have a suggestion – if these infantile souls like to go round and round, perhaps they could wait until all the smaller children have gone home from the playgrounds and they could spin on roundabouts all they like. Or go really high on the swings if it’s thrills they are after.

And they wouldn’t be breaking the law, exactly, though some playgrounds do have an age limit so that should give them a frisson of guilt, if that’s what they are after.

Or – and here’s an idea I bet none of them have thought of – they could grow up, act their ages and respect people’s property. Maybe even take up a sport and enjoy the playing fields in a whole – and wholesome – new way?”

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