New Customer For Toro

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New Customer For Toro: St Enodoc Golf Club has an impressive roll call. It is the premier golf club based in Cornwall, sixth in the country according to Golf World, and ranked 99th in the world by Golf Digest. Adding to that, is the fact that it is now a new Toro customer.

Based on that roll call it’s easy to see that this links course, based on the North Cornwall coast overlooking the Camel Estuary, has high standards to maintain. Simon Greatorex, general manager, explains why he and course manager Scott Gibson turned to Toro to help with that.

New Customer For Toro

Simon says: ”As a general manager I have spent a lot of time with the greenkeepers, and time and time again the preferred machinery choice is Toro. This is almost always down to their opinion on the brand’s reliability, build quality and machine support from the supplier and dealer, in this case Reesink Turfcare and Devon Garden Machinery. I happen to agree with them on all of these points.”

And that’s why the club has opted for Toro this time, and is in receipt of two Greensmaster 3400 TriFlex mowers, a Reelmaster 5410 and a Reelmaster 3100-D with Sidewinder, to tend the club’s greens, surrounds and fairways.

Of these machines, Scott says it’s the Reelmaster 3100-D with Sidewinder which is standing out for the club’s greenkeeping team of eight. In particular for “its versatility, excellent stability, clean and superior cut, and immaculate presentation,” says Scott. He goes on to praise all four machines for their ergonomic design.

Plus, there’s the service and support of Reesink Turfcare and Devon Garden Machinery. Scott says: “We have a long-standing relationship with Devon Garden Machinery who distributes Toro in our area, the service and support we get from them is second to none. And Reesink has made the whole process very straight forward, from the advice on the type of equipment we needed to purchase, to the many options that were open to us to finance the fleet, it has been nothing but easy.”

So why has St Enodoc opted for Toro now? Simon explains: “The club has an ongoing course improvement plan, plus the drive to attract some additional events to Cornwall. We already host the South West Ladies Match Week in July for Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, and in 2019 we will be hosting the English Senior Women’s Amateur Strokeplay Championship. With Toro on board we feel we stand in good stead for expanding this roll-call even further.”

For more information, visit: reesinkturfcare.co.uk

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Terrain Aeration At Hyde Park

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Terrain Aeration At Hyde Park: Terrain Aeration has provided services to relieve compaction of soil at Hyde Park. The company used its Airforce Terralift and SuperScamper machines. The latter works in conjunction with a towed compressor and is therefore a lighter machine producing less weight on the turf surface. The primary areas to be treated were north of the Bandstand, an area of 10,200 m2 with sycamores and elms, along with the ash tree circle north of Serpentine Road, an area of 892 m2

Before work started it was necessary to radar scan for underground services and mark out the areas to be treated. The Terralift hammers a hollow probe one metre into the soil, releasing a blast of compressed air to fracture the compaction and injecting dried seaweed which will expand and contract with the moisture content in the ground. The probe is inserted in spacings of two metres on a grid pattern, to ensure the underground fracturing overlaps. The resulting holes are top-filled with Lytag, lightweight aggregate to provide a long-term aeration and ventilation shaft which will encourage air and water into the root zone. The result is a healthier soil structure, the compaction is relieved and a stronger root growth is promoted.

Terrain Aeration At Hyde Park

This particularly applied in Hyde Park in the areas around the trees.Terrain Aeration have also treated the area around the Horse Chestnut group in Kensington Gardens to the east of Broadwalk and in Regents Park, the area beneath the canopies of the first and second line of trees between Chester Road and Ready Money Fountain. An area of two thousand five hundred square metres beneath canopies of Norway maples at the southern end of Marylebone Green has also had the Terralift treatment. “We have used Terrain Aeration’s services for a number of years now,” says Ian Roger, Royal Parks’ Arboricultural Manager, “and their programme of decompaction of the soil beneath some of our most stressed trees will have long-term benefits, extending their viable lifespan, and ensuring their continued contribution to the amenity of the park and the environment.”

For more information, visit: www.terrainaeration.co.uk

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SCH Trailer As Popular As Ever

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SCH Trailer As Popular As Ever: SCH (Supplies) Ltd have recently supplied a customer with a galvanised version of their popular hydraulic tipping trailer.

The customer had asked for the manual tipping version of the trailer – which is also available in two tractor powered versions (one and two pipe) and an electric version. 

SCH Trailer As Popular As Ever

All metal work on the trailer was galvanised including the mesh extension sides. In the standard version, SCH supply the trailer metalwork in a paint finish (usually red, but green can also be specified at time of order so that the trailer can match the customer’s tractor). The mesh sides on a standard model are painted black.  

The standard HTRL has a carrying capacity of 1000kg (1 ton) and is 915mm (36”) wide by 1800mm (72”) long. The customer also requested wider 20-10 x 8 wheels instead of the standard 600 x 9s. 

SCH say they are happy to take orders from any customer requesting variations to standard builds. This means the companies’ huge array of trailers, turfcare systems, sprayers, water units and their other products can usually be customised to suit their own requirements. 

For more information, visit: www.schsupplies.co.uk

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School Extends Dennis Fleet

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School Extends Dennis Fleet: Andy Richards, grounds manager at Shrewsbury School, has extended his existing fleet of Dennis mowers having recently purchased three new Dennis FT510’s and two new G760’s. 

Andy has been the grounds manager at the illustrious Shrewsbury School for nearly eight years and he and his team of eleven groundstaff tend to 120 acres of green space – three quarters of which are sports pitches. In addition to synthetic surfaces and other world class facilities there are ten grass pitches which cater for the School’s highly competitive sports teams.

School Extends Dennis Fleet

The boys compete internationally in cricket, and Shrewsbury School boasts a string of historically strong football teams. Rugby is played at a high level and girls compete locally and nationally in hockey, netball and tennis. It’s no wonder then that with over 800 pupils, many of whom participate in sports, that the sports pitches endure an incredibly high amount of usage. This, however, does not keep Andy and his team from maintaining them to an exceptionally high standard.

“The trick is to be pro-active rather than reactive,” he says. “We try to keep the standards of our pitches to those of the football league. In fact, our first team football pitch is definitely better than the pitch I had when I was the head groundsman at a professional football club.”

Andy chooses to use a variety of equipment from Dennis to get the best out of his sports surfaces. For cricket square maintenance he uses his three Dennis FT510’s and for football two G760 mowers.

“This is my third batch of FT510’s and they work extremely hard here,” he says. “We use them predominantly for cricket wicket presentation and through the cricket season we host 250 matches – they are used for every one of those.”

The Dennis FT510 is an interchangeable cassette cylinder mower giving users options to fit twelve different cassettes including scarifiers, verticutters, brushes, spikers and slitters as well as 5 or 10 blade cutting cassettes.

“We’ve got a wide range of cassettes and by having the three machines we have the ability to use a different cassette in each one. We might have a cylinder, a brush and a verticutter out at the same time so we can use them back to back. On other days, one of the team may just work all day on a wicket and they can simply interchange their cassettes without having to get a different machine out. It’s a massive time saver and it’s great having that versatility.”

For his football surfaces, Andy revealed that he is an advocate of hand mowing and that he uses his G760’s in conjunction with his Dennis Premiers: “I’ve always been a fan of the G760’s and originally we used them on the cricket squares. However, we started hand cutting the first team football pitch with them and we have the added bonus of using a variety of different cassettes such as the verticutter and brush.

“To allow us to mow more pitches by hand we use the G760’s alongside the Premiers which have a slightly wider cut and it gives us a good contrast with the G760 because that is slightly smaller and slightly lighter. When the pitches are wetter we can get on with a G760; on other occasions we may veer more towards the weight of the Premier.

“We try and vary what we do and it may depend on the usage and what games we have but it is ideal having a variety of machines.”

With such a hectic schedule, Andy was also quick to praise the reliability of the machines and the back-up he receives from the Dennis team.

“We are such a busy school and we haven’t got any downtime at all. Fortunately we don’t have many problems and that comes down to the quality of the machines. The back-up from Dennis is really good and reassuring and I could pretty much guarantee that if something did go wrong, I know that something would be sorted out extremely quickly.”

For further information or a no obligation demonstration, please contact Dennis 01332 824 777 or visit www.dennisuk.com

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Leamington GC Chooses Foley

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Leamington GC Chooses Foley: The search for continual improvement is high at Leamington & County Golf Club, with the ambitious team of head greenkeeper and general manager looking towards the Foley ACCU-Sharp 605 for cost saving, plant health and ease of use.

The duo of head greenkeeper, Jason Cooper, and general manager, Bryan Frazer, make a formidable team through their understanding of each other’s role in maintaining and elevating one of Warwickshire’s finest parkland courses.

Leamington Golf Club Chooses Foley

The most recent display of their common objective was bringing grinding in-house with their first ever on-site grinder. Criteria were drawn up, the options examined, and the result now sitting proudly in the workshop sporting a familiar green and black, is the ACCU-Sharp 605 spin and relief grinder.

Bryan is the driving force behind what is a progressive and forward-thinking club that is always trying to improve for its members, but also the outside golfing world. His aim, by providing Jason and his team with equipment they need, is to improve on the already high standards and create new competitions by building a reputation for excellence.

Women’s golf is an area Bryan is particularly focused on and it is his hope that Leamington & County Golf Club will be able to attract some of Britain’s top female golfers in years to come – but the improvements begin by improving the course.

“The core thing for us was that buying the grinder through a finance deal was a no cost option because we already had a cost for contracting. This on-going expense is now gone, and the fixed term means we will be cost free within five years,” Bryan said.

“Our point of view on is that by learning new skills and having our own machine it would be cheaper than the winter service work and provide us with the flexibility we need to offer more events.”

“Ian invited us to Farol’s (John Deere dealership at Hinckley) for a demonstration of their Foley grinders, and it didn’t take me very long to say to Jason ‘We could definitely use this grinder to raise the quality of the golf course.’ and along with the new drainage schemes underway, we will be able to sustain a better course for the same money and then look at how we offer that to our members and the wider golfing world.”

Of the numerous considerations in the decision-making process, the most crucial for Jason was the time it would take to learn and operate the grinder for first time users. After going through training with ProSport UK’s Ian Robson, himself and two of his staff quickly realised the simplicity of operation.

Jason explains: “Learning to use the machine has been fine.. Two of us are more mechanically minded than the other that’s using it, but I wanted him on board so someone who knows the process is always on site. He found it incredibly easy and intuitive to use, with the direct training provided by Ian to explain the basics. We’ve got it on a rotation system where one strips the unit down, one does the grinding and then the other person rebuilds, and we swap it around so we all get used to it.

“The really interesting aspect we have discovered, is the concept of relief grinding, but once you understand the principle, it makes perfect sense to take grinding from basic sharpness to a whole new level of excellence. It gives us that ongoing improvement in the quality of the cut, we reduce disease, we reduce fungicides, we reduce pesticides and gain a lot of flexibility.”

All these positive benefits will allow Jason to pursue his goal of having the course at the same high standard for the entire season, whilst also allowing Bryan’s vision for the club and what they can offer to expand.

Jason continues “We can plan when we’re going to grind now, for example before our main club event. We can give the cylinders a quick sharpen and we’ll have a nice crisp clean cut. We can work with this flexibility and see what we can achieve. If a mower goes off cut or the reel is damaged we aren’t waiting for a day and half for it to be fixed, we can turn it around ourselves and get back up and running within a few hours.”

Looking for ways to improve is a very strong part of the clubs continued success and by working together Bryan and Jason hope to elevate the course and fulfil its potential, and both view the acquisition of the ACCU-Sharp Sharp 605 as a vital part of that progression.

For more information, visit: www.prosportukltd.com

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