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‘Augusta of the North’ Vandalised

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‘Augusta of the North’ Vandalised: Boy racers have taken to a golf course in Angus and caused significant damage.

Letham Grange Golf Club was previously kept open against all odds and honorary secretary Bruce Currie said the damage to several fairways was a “real kick in the teeth”.

Opened in 1987 by Sir Henry Cotton, Golf Monthly once bracketed Letham Grange in Angus alongside Augusta National, the home of the US Masters.

Mr Currie said: “The louts who carried out this most recent attack, whoever they are, clearly have no care for the time, money and commitment that our members have invested in maintaining this facility for the benefit of the local community and golf in Scotland, and should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.”

Throughout the long-running legal wrangle over the ownership of the once-thriving hotel at the centre of the estate, the Letham Grange Golf Club, which makes use of the disputed facilities, has battled on.

The 19th century mansion house was at the centre of a title dispute that went through all levels of the Scottish courts system to the House of Lords over the past 15 years.

Members turned up at the course to play at the weekend and were disgusted to discover the fairways of several holes had been vandalised.

Holes on both the championship-standard Old Course and the Glens Course had been damaged by a vehicle or vehicles being driven recklessly across them, churning up the turf and leaving deep scars.

“This mindless vandalism is deeply frustrating,” said Mr Currie.

“The club’s members and greenkeepers have worked tirelessly in challenging circumstances, successfully, to keep the two courses open since the hotel closed its doors in January 2011.

“Just in the past few days, members and greenkeepers combined in a huge effort to tackle the after effects of Storm Ali, clearing masses of fallen branches from the heavily tree-lined courses.

“Both were open for play within 24 hours of the storm passing.

“To have this man-made damage inflicted immediately afterwards is a real kick in the teeth.

“This is not the first time we have been targeted.

“Earlier this year there was a break-in and robbery at the clubhouse for which one of the perpetrators was recently sentenced to a jail term and we have previously experienced theft of equipment on several occasions.”

A 15-year legal wrangling over the resort’s ownership finally reached its conclusion earlier this year.

A settlement was reached between the liquidator of Letham Grange Development Company (LGDC) and Peter Liu who was the owner of LGDC from 1994-2002.

Since April 2011, the golf club has maintained and operated the courses under a Licence to Occupy.

The Licence to Occupy runs until February 28 next year.

The Old Course is a 6,632 yard par 73 championship layout that features memorable water hazards on the eighth and 10th holes.

The Glens Course opened in 1992 and is a challenging, 5,528 yards, par 68 course.

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Ransomes Jacobsen At Ipswich GC

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Ransomes Jacobsen At Ipswich GC: A fourth five-year exclusive supplier agreement has been signed by Ipswich Golf Club for Ransomes Jacobsen turf maintenance equipment. Bartram mowers, supply the machinery at Ipswich Golf Club.

Commenting at the official signing of the agreement, Ipswich Golf Club’s Course Manager Graham Brumpton said,

Ransomes Jacobsen At Ipswich GC

“We have had a relationship with Ransomes Jacobsen and Bartrams for more than 20 years now. The Ransomes Jacobsen manufacturing facility and the Bartrams depot are just a mile from our course, so that is very convenient. Having said that, the service and the quality of machinery that we receive is truly second to none, which is why we continue to keep our longstanding partnership in place.”

Kevin Lovelock, Director of Golf at Ipswich Golf Club said,

“I am delighted to continue the close relationship with Ransomes Jacobsen. As a club we are very fortunate to have one of the world’s leading golf course machinery brands in Ipswich and it makes perfect sense for the two of us to work together.”

Ipswich Golf Club have since made a few purchases under the agreement including a Jacobsen LF570 fairway mower, a Turfco WideSpin 1550 topdresser and a Turfco Torrent 2 blower.

“Before signing the agreement and making these purchases, we also looked at other brands and products,” Brumpton continued. “We had demonstrations of different fairway mowers, but the Jacobsen LF570 came out on top. It was a unanimous decision amongst all nine of my staff, that the Jacobsen mower had a far superior quality of cut, and they found the machine the easiest and most comfortable to operate.

Ransomes Jacobsen At Ipswich GC

“At Ipswich Golf Club we are part of the Natural England Higher Level Stewardship Scheme. The aim of this is to bring the course back to heathland vegetation, as there is a huge decline in heathland areas and golf courses in the U.K. We are now seven years into the scheme, and the results are superb. We work closely with STRI, and we are proud of our reputation for environmental sustainability.

“Our relationship with Ransomes Jacobsen is enhanced by our shared values of sustainability. This is shown in the company’s product offering with the Eclipse 322 hybrid mower, which we use on our greens; the machine eliminates things such as oil leaks and noise pollution.”

Ipswich Golf Club is one of Suffolk’s most prestigious courses, and it’s 27-holes are beautifully presented over 8,500 yards of heathland with additional practice facilities. The Club will host the English Women’s Open Amateur Stroke Play Championship in August 2019.

For more information, visit: www.jacobsen.com

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Anger After Mower Theft

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Anger After Mower Theft: Steve Kenny, chairman of Whalley Junior Football Club, is angry after thieves broke the lock of a container and stole a Craftsman mower worth £2k on September 18.

The club have two large pitches, and three smaller-sided pitches to cater for matches for their age-groups from

Mr Kenny said: “It is gutting and frustrating as we put a lot of effort into fundraising events a few years ago.

“We have to mow our fields as part of the agreement with the parish council to use the facility.

“Our groundsman Dave Leeming rang me to tell me about it and you could tell how gutted he was in his voice when he told us.

“We have a lot of volunteers and we are doing it for the community and then you get people doing this.

“It is a huge area to cut and we have paid to get a new yellow deck on the side of it to cut the grass which makes it distinctive.

“We have been asking people locally if they have any CCTV of vehicles in the area to see if we can identify who stole it.

“It is a real shame because it is for the community as other organisations and families use the pitches too. If we don’t maintain it, then it will be overgrown.”

Steve has been amazed by the response of the community since the news broke.

He said: “One of our neighbours has contacted us to say that we can borrow their sit-on mower if we needed it.

“We have also set up a Crowdfunding page to try to raise money for a new one.

“So far we have managed to get £920 and we have been taken aback by the support in such a short space of time.

“We are hoping to get our target of £2k to get another mower.”

Groundsman Dave Leeming said: “I turned up and the container was open.

“I rang up to see if anyone had left it like that and then I saw the mower was missing.

“It was heartbreaking when I saw the lock has been forced open.

“I have been going down two or three times a week and put a lot of time into getting the pitches looking good and you just cannot do your job.”

Sgt Stuart Banks, from the Neighbourhood team in Ribble Valley, said: “This crime is going to have a massive effect on a football club and they are suffering a significant loss to mow their pitches.

“We are appealing for anyone who saw anything suspicious in the area to report it to us.

“Another vehicle would have been needed to take it away from there so we need the public to help by calling 101 and using the crime reference number of 20180918-0781.”

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Gillingham To Replace Pitch

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Gillingham To Replace Pitch: Gillingham have taken the decision to replace their current playing surface with a hybrid pitch, leading to the rescheduling of two home fixtures.

The surface of the Priestfield pitch has been problematic for some time and the club have now decided to act.

Their home game against Peterborough United is the last on the current surface before renovation work begins, this Monday.

Chairman Paul Scally confirmed the work is to be undertaken and that negotiations are underway about moving the home league match against Blackpool and finding a new venue for their Checkatrade Trophy game against Tottenham’s under-21s.

Mr Scally said: “Work is scheduled to begin on Monday.

“As a result of the work, which will take little over a fortnight, our home match against Blackpool will have to be rearranged, while our match against Totteham in the Checkatrade Trophy will have to be played at another venue.”

Manager Steve Lovell was delighted with the news.

He said: “It’s fantastic news for us as coaching staff and our players that we will have a brilliant pitch to play on in the next couple of weeks. The type of football I like to play will be one that we will hopefully be able to produce at home, as well as away.”

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Hong Kong EcoBunkers Survive Typhoon

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Hong Kong EcoBunkers Survive Typhoon: Hong Kong were last weekend hit by Typhoon Mangkhut, which was the most intense storm to hit the territory since records began back in 1946. Winds of up to 250 km/h (155 mph) battered the region, and the associated storm surge saw floodwaters reach their highest levels since 1904, up to 3.38 metres (eleven feet) above normal.

The storm uprooted 1,500 trees and shattered hundreds of windows across Hong Kong. But on two of the territory’s golf courses, the damage was less than might have been expected. During the summer, both the Shek O Country Club and the Clearwater Bay G&CC installed the EcoBunker synthetic edging system in trial bunkers on their courses, and both bunkers survived the storm with no damage to the artificial turf wall, in contrast with the rest of the course, several holes of which were left underwater.

Hong Kong EcoBunkers Survive Typhoon

During summer 2018, the 99 year old Shek O club used a small area of land close to the coast to build a new short game practice area, with three artificial grass greens, each with three tees, creating, in effect, a nine hole par three short course. Late in planning, the club, in conjunction with Hong Kong-based EcoBunker distributor Jeffrey Eshuis of Centaur Asia Pacific, decided to use the EcoBunker system on the practice area. Course manager Ross Grieve was interested in learning about new bunker construction methods that could be used to reduce his maintenance on many of the course’s bunkers, which tend to suffer from regular washouts during the region’s regular heavy rainfall events.

EcoBunker airfreighted three pallets of its product from London to Hong Kong, and chief executive Richard Allen travelled to the territory to train the local teams in the unique EcoBunker construction technique.

Meanwhile, at Clearwater Bay down the coast, EcoBunker construction specialist Llewelyn Matthews built another trial bunker – using a combination of Capillary Concrete liner technology and EcoBunker edging – in August. That too survived Mangkhut intact.
Richard Allen said: “The design is based on an innovative fusion of established engineering techniques, providing confidence in the strength and stability of our product and our construction methodology, but you don’t get any testing grounds more severe than a super-typhoon of this kind. Both clubs have a lot of clearing up to do elsewhere, but their EcoBunkers won’t be adding to the workload.”

Hong Kong EcoBunkers Survive Typhoon

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