Style and flair to spare

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Style and flair to spare: Scott MacCallum speaks with Glenalmond College’s Head of Grounds Tim Holden, right, about how he uses his remarkable array of skills to enhance the environment of this amazing independent school.

Glenalmond College, halfway between Perth and Crieff in the glorious Perthshire countryside, is an amazing place. It is set in over 300 acres of ground, 240 of it maintained, while the range of sports catered for at the college is truly mouthwatering. As well as the usual rugby, football, cricket and hockey there is, among many others, the school’s own golf course, archery, mountain biking and bush crafts.

Managing the grounds, and such a diverse range of sports and pursuits, is a team of six, led by a man who is truly a Swiss Army Knife in human form.

Head of Grounds Tim Holden turns his hand to whatever is required, whether that be gritting the roads to allow access the school; maintaining all the vehicles and machinery to looking after all the thousands of trees on site thanks to his tree surgery qualification.

In addition, he is perfectly qualified to engrave the names on the school’s trophies or mend any of its clocks. Tim, you see, is a former qualified jeweller. Oh yes, add into that, should the college wish to add sailing to its sporting offering, you have the very man on site. Tim is a former national champion in the Javelin class.

Indeed, with Glenalmond College being landlocked, Tim would no doubt drive the minibus full of students to the marina as well.

But does Tim feel taken advantage of because his range of skills are more than fully ultilised and that he finds himself banking one salary for an output of three or four? Not a bit of it.

“Working here is fantastic. It is a glorious place and to be able to work in a setting as diverse as this is wonderful. We have kites, buzzards and deer. It is such a beautiful part of the country,” said the Mancunian, leaving us in no doubt that he doesn’t feel hard done by with the weight of his workload.

The College was actually founded by former UK Prime Minister William Gladstone in 1847, giving it a certain kudos from the start, but for many, its connection with Harry Potter is much more exciting.

Hogwarts’ Groundsman, Hagrid – in the shape of actor Robbie Coltrane – was an “OG”, that is to say a Glenalmond former pupil!

Glenalmond has shaped the futures of so many and it is easy to see why. The tranquil setting coupled with range of sporting opportunities make it a very special place.

“The boys play rugby from September to December and we have four dedicated pitches over that time including our first team pitch. In January, February and March they become lacrosse pitches for the girls. The boys play hockey from January through the March and the girls play hockey from September to December.

In other words we play hockey all the way through winter, it just swaps from boys to girls.,” explained Tim.

And that’s just rugby and hockey over the winter.

“In summer those pitches are swapped to athletics. We put down a 300 metre track and have a guy who comes in and marks it out for us. It would take us quite a long time but he comes in and does it in a day for us.”

Style and flair to spare

Style and flair to spare

The cricket, football and golf are played a little further away on the estate and could take a 400 metre track but logistically it is a little more inaccessible.

The wonderful rolling countryside of Perthshire is genuinely lovely, but not for sports pitches and many of the Glenalmond pitches have had to be levelled, some many many years ago.

“One of our pitches was created by digging up on one side and filling in the other and, on our cricket pitch, one side of it has completely different soil to the other.

“Earlier this year was when we had the MCC playing here and they had a cracking day, but it poured down in the evening and for the tournament the next day we had to pull the boundary in by five metres because there was a pool of water on one side from the overnight rain.”

What solutions are possible?

“You really have to live with the problem as you can’t really change it through the season. We can create secondary drainage to link to the primary and that is something we will look at, but it’s not really been an issue until the last 12 months when it hasn’t stopped raining. We’ve not had a week when it’s not rained since June last year.”

Being one of the most northerly premier educational establishments in the country does carry its issues and Tim has known times when there was snow a metre deep on the astro pitches. There is nothing to do but wait for the thaw in those circumstances as you can’t push 100 metres of snow to the back of the pitch when you only have five metres of space.

“We do have snow clearers. Living in a town the council comes round and clears it but not up here.

I do the surrounds and the roads to the college to enable students, teachers, food deliveries, medical etc. You have got to have access,” said Tim, who lives on site.

The golf course is nine holes with 18 tees, but don’t go thinking this is nothing more than an afterthought. It is a serious golf course as befits one designed by the great James Braid, who has Carnoustie, Gleneagles, Dalmahoy and Lundin Links included among his canon of work.

There can’t be too many students who have such a course at their beck and call but it does cause Tim and his team, with their fleet of machines logistical issues.

The weather does cause issues with the day-to-day maintenance schedules at the college.

“If the weather, or rather when the weather, causes problems it can knock out the scheduling of equipment and we can find that our triple mower or greens mower can be in the wrong place. To get from the 5th hole at the far end of the golf course to the other side of the estate is close to two miles so even getting people there and back is time consuming.

“We have the same mowers sharing different tasks around the site and if it’s wet we can miss our window for mowing certain areas and that can have a knock on effect and a big catch up to do. It can be quite awkward,” explained Tim.

“Sometimes we have to adapt and do the best job we can even if all we have access to is a different machine.

For example, the golf course and the cricket field is cut at 15 mil but if all we have is the roller deck mower we can cut at 20 mil, so at least we can get fairly close to what we need until we can get back with the correct mower for the task,” explained Tim, who is also the College mechanic.

Self-taught, he had a passion for mechanics harking back to the time when as a young boy he used to dismantle his dad’s lawnmower, usually just as he was about to put it to good use.

“I enjoy diagnosing the problems and finding out what needs to be done. The more you do the more you learn and I’ve built up a good range of tools. Most of our machines are second hand so warranties aren’t an issue and with me doing the work it saves massively in downtime as I can fix many problems in hours rather than machines being taken away to be repaired.”

The two latest additions to Glenalmond’s sporting portfolio is mountain biking and archery with brand new track for the former just completed at the end of May.

Believed to be the first bespoke mountain bike track at any school in the country it came as a result of the success of another OG. Charlie Aldridge recently won the World Under-23 Championship and he featured, strongly in the first two laps as it happens, in the remarkable Olympic race won by now double Olympic Champion Tom Pidcock.

Charlie eventually finished a very creditable eighth in the race but the Glenalmond track, which will soon be extended, will be something else for which he is known.

“The college has got to reflect modern day pursuits and mountain biking is not something which we would have considered 20 years ago but is now firmly established as an Olympic sport,” said Tim, who added that the guy who teaches the mountain biking is the same one who teaches bush craft and survival skills.

“It is very popular with the summer camps and the scouts who visit. It’s very Bear Grylls.”

Tim arrived at the college nine years ago having moved to Scotland from initially Manchester, but latterly Whaley Bridge, in Derbyshire, where he had his own jewellery business, hence his engraving and clock repairing expertise. Looking for a complete change, once arriving north of the border he trained to be a tree surgeon and worked in the capacity for six or seven years before applying for the job at Glenalmond.

Initially appointed Deputy Head of Grounds he took on the main role within a year and hasn’t looked back since.

Style and flair to spare

Style and flair to spare

“The challenges of the job can provide us with variation, even if they do cause headaches. It’s never dull. With such a big area to maintain there is a vast variety of tasks to do whether than be pulling out weeds to carrying out major tree work and everything in between.

“We usually lose one or two trees a year but when Storm Arwen came through we lost something in the region of 250 and we’ve still not been able to get to every one of those.

It’s a mammoth task,” said Tim, but again the college is lucky in having a qualified tree surgeon to carry out the work safely and professionally.

“We’ve got amenity areas, woodland areas, we’ve got the bike track and all the different sports in play which are so different. That is one of the main attractions of the job for me,” explained Tim, who was Javelin Class National Sailing Champion in 1998 and who still sails as a hobby, but now in a larger boat.

He is indebted to his small but hard-working team.

“The team is fantastic and all work really hard and I really appreciate the work that they do and the effort they put in. When you think about it with holidays we are only really working with five people for most of the year,” said Tim, who has recently returned to work after a knee replacement.

With that human Swiss Army Knife leading them, the Glenalmond College grounds team will continue to make the most of every minute of every day to ensure the estate remains as spectacular as ever.

New kids on the block

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New kids on the block: Scott MacCallum speaks with the three men responsible for the GroundsFest event which made such an impact on the industry last year and which is about to take another step forward in its second year.

If there was an industry-wide award for Best Newcomer for 2023 I don’t doubt that there wouldn’t be much complaint if it went to GroundsFest.

New kids on the block

New kids on the block

The two-day indoor/outdoor trade show, with a music festival in between, proved to be a big hit, so much so that the second edition of GroundsFest in September is already promising to be a much bigger version than the first, with record numbers of exhibitors, and even more brands, on display.

That GroundsFest hit the ground running at Olympic speed is credit to the team whose vision it was, and whose hard work it was, turned a good idea on paper into a wonderful event in reality in the grounds of the Stoneleigh Park, in Warwickshire.

Chris Bassett, Chris Bennett and Charles Neale are the three men who trusted their beliefs and launched a new show into what many had already described as a crowded market.

They took time to talk with Turf Matters a few weeks ahead of the second GroundsFest.

Turf Matters (TM): How did the idea and concept of GroundsFest come up in the first place?

Chris Bassett: We instructed an independent third party to carry out market research surveying the thoughts of potential exhibitors and visitors. We actually looked at other options, from a series of road shows, to having one national show but moving it around the country. However, based on the research we opted for one national show in the middle of the country. Then, after looking at around a dozen potential venues, including some abandoned airfields, we identified Stoneleigh as offering the best range of indoor and outdoor space. We wanted an event which was beneficial to not just the visitors but the exhibitors as well and as a result we were able to come up with a price point for indoor and outdoor what was cost effective for the exhibitors.

TM: The industry has long urged for the two main shows – BTME and SALTEX – to combine to create one show. You’ve come along with a third show. How did you persuade the industry that a third show was something that they should entertain?

Chris Bennett: I don’t think we needed to persuade them as the research we carried out showed that there was such an overwhelming appetite for what GroundsFest was offering. All the stats, all the feedback, pointed to an event that was held in September and which had a mix of indoor and outdoor space. It was what the industry wanted.

New kids on the block

New kids on the block

Charles Neale: When it came to our year one launch we had just shy of 15,000 square metres of booked space, which goes to highlight the backing we had from the start. And bear in mind that came about with us starting our planning and selling the show in just 11 months. Again I think that backs up the need for a show of our type.

TM: Were there any alarm bells clanging from the fact that others had tried to launch events and show without real success?

CBass: Well we do like a challenge, and to prove people wrong. It is fair to say that had we not carried out the extensive research in the first place we wouldn’t have done what we have done. Ok, it’s one thing to get the research, it’s another thing to get people to start backing you. But it quickly snowballed and we had a great response from the industry. We had a busy couple of months out on the road talking to as many people as possible and we found we had a lot of support. Some manufacturers did sit on the fence for the first year and sent dealers to see how it went. As it proved to be a good show they are coming back this time as manufacturers rather than sending their dealers.

CBenn: The team behind GroundsFest is very well known within the industry and has vast exhibition experience so that helped to give people confidence that we could actually deliver an event as well.

TM: How did you come about the time of year and the date for the Show?

CBass: Again that was all down to the research. There were three key times that stood out – November/December, January and then September – and September was the standout choice if we wanted to have an outdoor element to the show. Although the way the weather is changing at the moment, and what we faced that first day last year, nothing is certain! We also didn’t want to clash with the existing shows.

New kids on the block

New kids on the block

TM: Logistically, how do you go about putting on a new show? Do you wait until sales come in and then secure space, or do you secure the space and then seek to fill it?

CN: More of the latter really. On other exhibitions I’ve worked on I’ve preferred to sell off plan because I prefer the exhibitor to have a choice rather than have them send in their dimensions and drop them into the plan. I think it works better that way. We had a plan in mind in year one but it did change quite considerably from that original plan to accommodate the numbers who wished to book. How we have grown from even then to now is fantastic.

TM: What were the hiccups and hurdles you faced going into that first GroundsFest? You can reveal them to us now!

CBass: The biggest hiccup was definitely the weather. Obviously I died on my sword a bit by saying that our research had shown that September was the driest and best month for the show, and then we had a hurricane on the first day which wasn’t ideal for the launch. But in a funny way it actually worked in our favour. When, despite the awful weather at the start, the doors opened and so many people came through the gates I think the exhibitors where pleased and surprised. I think it brought everyone together.

CBenn: You aren’t going to get a sterner test for a launch event that facing the tail end of a hurricane (Hurricane Nigel) on the very first day.

CN: The wind speeds during build up were 40mph, The day before we had a gazebo fly from one side of the showground to the other.

TM: Talk us through your thoughts that first morning when the rain was tumbling down and the wind was blowing sideways.

CBass: When I opened the curtains in the hotel room and saw the weather I don’t mind telling you I did have a tear running down my cheek. You are praying for decent weather to give yourself the best possible start, especially in the first year, but that wasn’t the case. But the Operations Team was great and the GroundsFest Team was great. We just wanted to make sure that from a customer services point of view we were on point, from the set up to the breakdown. I think we achieved that. We received loads of comments about how great the wider team was and seeing
exhibitors saying that we made it as easy as possible for them for them to exhibit and sell products that was what we wanted to do. We didn’t want exhibitors to have issues while they were there. Whatever issue they did have, we would sort it.

CN: We were out there from minute one in the rain speaking to exhibitors, and that went down really well. Collectively the three of us picked each other up at times during the build up because, we’re not stupid, we had access to weather apps and could see the storm coming. I was down at one point, Chris Bassett, at one point and Chris Bennett at another time. We just kept picking each other up.

CBenn: I don’t sleep at the best of times but I remember looking out the window at the outdoor ring and the rain was coming in, the wind was coming in and there were nerves and anxiety. It wasn’t a nice feeling, but we stuck together and the team spirit really shone through.

TM: At what point did you think that this is going to work?

CBenn: I remember speaking to one exhibitor about 1pm in the afternoon of the first day and he said to me that he’d re-sign right away, just give him the form. I thought then that there was a huge appetite for this show and that people wanted an event like GroundsFest. That was only hours into the show. The second time was at the Festival when we were able to take a step back and as a GroundsFest team, grab a drink and watch the thousand plus people who had stayed on.

CN: About three or weeks after the show when all re-bookings were coming in.

CBass: For me, I knew it was going to be successful a couple of months later when reached the point that we had broken even and we could then begin to give back to the industry in the way of the Education Fund.

TM: What can we expect from GroundsFest 2024?

CBass: It will be bigger and better. We will see a shift towards GroundsFest becoming the national show to attend, We are already the largest show in the industry in terms of exhibitor numbers and brands on show. We have more exhibitors booked than BTME and Saltex combined. It is up to us to prove that we are here to stay, but I believe we are giving exhibitors and visitors a unique concept that no-one else can offer and because of where we pitch our pricing and with our indoor or outdoor options, we are bringing exhibitors back who haven’t been at shows for a number of years.

CN: We’ve increased the show in every way. We have taken all of Hall 1 and moved the Landscape Zone to increase that area. The Grand Ring outdoors area is completely full and we didn’t even take a third of it last year. We have over 17,000 square metres of space taken when last year it was 14,600 square metres. From three or four weeks into re-booking it’s gone crackers. Over 90% re-booked, while we’ve had just shy of 80 new companies who will be joining us this year – as it stands we have 247 exhibitors who will be showing over 500 brands.

CBass: There will be more live demos. Companies have taken bigger plots to be able to demo their products. We’ve got Machinery Nation Live where there will be comparison tests of like-for-like products. We have Grounds Training, both indoor and outdoor, and four seminar theatres will top quality speakers. We’ve moved the Festival to a larger hall and we’re bringing the catering indoors with an indoor seating area too. Due to popular demand we have brought back the Queen tribute band which went down so well, while we have another band and a couple of DJs. We also have Bumper cars which will be great fun.

New kids on the block

New kids on the block

CBenn: It’s not just the show itself. A big part is giving back to the industry and we were delighted, because of the success of year one, that we were able to start the GroundsFest Education Fund straight away. It had been scheduled for after year three but it was always one of the main reasons we launched GroundsFest. We recently went to visit some of the students who benefitted from the fund and it was really rewarding to speak with students who have used the fund to help them on their educational journey. A lot of rural colleges are situated out of the way, so we have helped fund driving lessons for some and been able to provide laptops, literature and allowed students to fund additional qualifications.

CBass: We have also been able to forge some very good relationships with so many of the industry bodies which I believe is crucial. With everyone pulling in the same direction it can only be good for the industry as a whole. We believe that GroundsFest has a key role in that going forward.

TM: Well, thank you all for your time and I hope you have another great show and manage to avoid any offspring of Hurricane Nigel!

GroundsFest 24; Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire, September 10 and 11

Keeping John Deere connected

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Keeping John Deere connected: Scott MacCallum was one of a small group of journalists who flew to Germany to see the latest technological launch from industry heavyweights, John Deere.

There we were, sitting in a lovely clubhouse in the middle of Germany, using an iPad to watch the movement of machinery on the legendary Carnoustie Golf Links, over a thousand miles away.

Keeping John Deere connected

Keeping John Deere connected

We could see a Gator making its way back to the sheds, or a green being cut out on the 14th.

Now there is more than one way in which this overarching technology can be viewed. Carnoustie had given their blessing to the be the example shown to the interested press and delegates, but yes, there is an element of Big Brother watching over your every move, but the more positive outlook is that you can identify inefficiencies or numerous ways in which time can be saved and resources used to their very best advantage.

John Deere has recently invested massively into the amenity turf industry, drawing much from the more advanced research and development from the much larger agricultural sector.

So there was much anticipation for the small group of press who were at the launch, held in John Deere’s European headquarters in Mannheim and those wonderful green machines with the yellow wheel inserts didn’t disappoint. The group were shown around the state-of-the-art factory, which is home to the two millionth John Deere tractor, which features the pictures of 300 of the staff who had worked on it.

John Deere Precision Turf technology has shown to increase productivity and efficiency. The focus is on connecting, guiding and managing the machines.

Connect The machines are connected using John Deere’s JDLink telemetry system. Machine data, such as hours, fuel level, or location is sent to the cloud-based John Deere Operations Centre . Fleet managers have a comprehensive view of individual machines or even the entire fleet whether they are on the go or in the office.

This allows precise planning of tasks, maximises uptime and uses the machine’s location to ensure optimal use. All golf equipment already has a JDLink modem for any turf-related operations. Starting with model year 2024, the 1500 Series TerrainCut front mowers and the TerrainCut 1600 Turbo wide area mowers will also be equipped with a JDLink modem.

There is the option to retrofit modems to commercial ZTrak Zero Turn mowers and compact utility tractors. Guide Precision guidance systems can be used to make turf operations more efficient.

Machines can accurately follow a pre-planned route, even in low visibility or during the night.

Keeping John Deere connected

Keeping John Deere connected

This allows the HD200 GPS Precision Sprayer to avoid overlaps or missed applications with a guidance system to accurately treat the turf. Standard Individual Nozzle Shutdown allows operators to only cover pre-defined turf, while lower maintenance areas are automatically left out.

This greatly simplifies the work processes as Public the operator can fully concentrate on the actual work process without having to take additional care to maintain the tracks. Components such as the StarFire receiver and the Universal Displays, plus technologies such as AutoTrac, enable the use of precision guidance systems.

The components can be easily transferred from one machine to another. Manage The John Deere Operations Centre provides a central platform for managing machine- and work-related information to make data-based decisions quickly and easily.

The Machine Analyser inspects and visualises machine data, for example, to identify service needs in time or to evenly distribute hours between machines.

The new John Deere Connectivity programme allows Course Managers, dealers and John Deere themselves to track machinery while out on the golf course from wherever they happen to be. It allows a much more objective assessment of performance.

“We can track how many hours a triple mower has worked and over time if we need to even up hours on leased equipment cutting units on tees mowers can be swapped with those on greens mowers as greens mower hours are much greater than those of tees mowers,” said Paul Trowman, John Deere’s European Marketing Manager.

This software integrates OnLink into the John Deere Operations Centre. John Deere Operations Centre PRO Golf provides solutions for managing golf course maintenance.

It provides functions to manage machine fleets and human resources.

At the same time, it provides information that greenkeepers need to manage their assets more efficiently and distribute tasks.

The work at John Deere shows that modern day technology can be a genuine force for good, a benefit to the industry and not something about which to be closed and suspicious.

Threat to our golfing jewels

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Threat to our golfing jewels: As weather becomes more extreme, coastal erosion is an issue for just about every links golf course in the country. What can and should be done? Scott MacCallum reports.

At the risk of sounding like John Lennon. Imagine there’s no Wembley; no Aintree Race course too. Imagine there’s no venues, it isn’t hard to do.

Threat to our golfing jewels

Threat to our golfing jewels

You get my drift. What if Wembley and Aintree, along with the likes of Wimbledon, Lords and Murrayfield, just disappeared off the face of the earth?

Sounds implausible doesn’t it? You might even accuse me of being a dreamer. But I’m not the only one. That’s the fate facing some of the country’s oldest and most revered golf courses, as coastal erosion has seen increasingly large chunks of links land being reclaimed by the sea.

The list of courses is as worrying as it is long. It includes Royal Aberdeen GC, which has hosted a Walker Cup, a Scottish Open and a British Seniors Open; Royal Montrose Golf Links, the fifth oldest golf course in the world; Alnmouth Village Golf Club, England’s oldest nine hole links course; Fortrose Golf Links, the 15th oldest golf links in the world.

Not to mention the hallowed St Andrews Links where intervention work has been going on for a number of years. That’s home to the Old Course, the most famous golf course in the world!

There is an army of modern day King Canutes, in the guise of Course Managers, facing the challenge of nature, with no guarantee that the resources or solutions are available to avoid the inevitable.

In fact, research shows that 100 Scottish golf courses are facing, or will be facing, the impact of coastal erosion with many historical and outstanding English courses facing the prospect of course damage, including Royal North Devon in the south and Formby and West Lancs in the north west.

New data has identified the courses that are most at risk from the effects climate change and while some of the timelines appear to give a decent amount of warning, there is no guarantee that solutions will resolve the issues.

Betting odds company AceOdds studied data, provided by Statista, which shows that the UK’s sea level is expected to rise by up to half a metre by the turn of the century.

It is reckoned that up to 28% of coastline in England and Wales, and 19% in Scotland, is at risk of erosion and, with a significant proportion of the country’s courses on low-lying ground where the land meets the sea, the dangers are there for all to see.

They found that the courses used by Arbroath Golf Club and Leven Golfing Society have a ‘high-risk’ level of flooding from both surface water and river/sea water, sitting only 24 metres and 35 metres above sea level on average.

That gives both a 75% ‘erosion risk’ over the next 75 years.

In England, Formby Golf Club is the course most at risk from climate change. It sits five metres above sea level and has a high risk of flooding from surface water, with a 50% likelihood of experiencing coastal erosion in the next 75 years.

Other highly regarding courses facing varying degrees of risk include Royal Dornoch, Nairn, Moray and the aforementioned West Lancs.

But for some the impact has come much quicker than anticipated and the results are horrific.

Fortrose and Rosemarkie Golf Club, on Scotland’s Black Isle, would have architect, James Braid, spinning in his grave if he knew what the golf course he laid out was now facing.

Last October it was visited by Storm Ciaran, which coincided with a high tide and historically low atmospheric pressure, and it created more havoc in the space of one night that the club had experience in many many years.

Massive waves washed away between five and six metres of land, with the 1st and 2nd holes particularly impacted.

Club Manager Mike MacDonald told Michael McEwan, of Bunkered magazine, that the club was aware if the issues and had begun making plans.

“Towards the end of 2022 we set up a coastal erosion sub-committee and throughout 2023 we met with various representatives from the Highland Council and Scottish Water to highlight the issues we were facing,” Mike told Bunkered.

However, they got very little support from either body, while other attempts to source funding from national bodies were turned down.

“So it wasn’t a surprise that we were impacted. What was surprising was the extent of the damage. It was far more severe and devastating than any of us had anticipated.”

The club has already used rock armour to reinforce the area around the 1st and 2nd, but it is a costly option leaving the club with a bill for £140,000 just for this one defence for one part of the golf course.

With little or no support coming from outside, the club is resorting to crowd funding and while this has produce some very welcome results it is but a drop in the ocean of what will ultimately be required.

Course Manager, George Paterson, is the man at the sharp end trying to keep the elements at bay.

George is a big fan of soft defences, rather than the rock armour which, while it has its place, does tend to shift the problem down the coast.

“We reclaimed 2850 tonnes of sand/Marram mix from the far end of the beach and established a dune area above the high tide watermark. It took three days and roughly 95 loads in a 30 tonne dump truck,” George told Turf Matters.

“This was banked up along the 250 metre eroded stretch of beach at the 1st hole and then we installed 500 metres of chestnut fencing to help stabilise the sand and keep foot traffic off it.

“This was done in March of this year, but a high tide in early April took away about three to four metres of the sand and we had to re-stake some of the fencing.

Since then it has re-stabilised and the sand has started to gather at the foot of the fencing again.

“Inside the fenced area, and along where our red hazard posts and public footpath are, we have sewn out a mix of creeping ryegrass and creeping fescue which is now starting to take hold.”

The issue at Fortrose is the same as at many similarly threatened links courses – there is no option of re-routing as the additional land just isn’t available.

Montrose Golf Links lost seven metres of golf course in the last 12 months, having foreseen a loss of perhaps one or one and a half metres a year prior to that.

They actually moved the 3rd tee in 2017 but that has already disappeared and the half a million they have allocated to improving defences may only prove to be a sticking plaster solution.

South of the border, but not that far south, is Alnmouth Village Golf Club, in Northumberland, England’s oldest nine hole links course.

A vibrant golf club with 300 members it is all that is good about small golf clubs. When I visited an army of members were just completing a divotting session led by Head Greenkeeper, John Scurfield, and Club Secretary Ian Simpson.

Once they had finished their divoting stint they took me out to the 5th hole which had taken a battering late last year. The traffic cone marking the current edge between green and beach is a stark indicator of the power of nature.

The course may have suffered even more if it wasn’t for the concrete blocks that were installed as tank defences during the war.

They have done a remarkable job to holding back the tide but there was a gap of 100 yards between them, a gap which exposed the 5th.

There would have been no extensive planning process required to keep Hitler at bay, but in 21st century Britain that isn’t the case, and Ian had been told informally that any hard – rock armour – defence option would not survive the planning stage.

“If we could have moved some tank blocks or put some more in it might be able to slow the erosion down,” explained Ian.

“Long term we are probably going to have to move the 5th green, 40 to 50 yards left of where it is now.”

When we were there the tide was out but the spring tide comes right up to the edge and John has to remove seaweed from the top of tee boxes.

Tide is out water does come right up to the edge can see the seaweed line can see how high the tide comes. Recently not so high tides come springtime and spring tides right up agains the edge, combined with an easterly wind.

“You can feel the spray when you are out working on the course,” said John.

He arrived as Head man just before the latest erosion issue.

“I was a little bit worried that my place of work disappearing before my eyes, especially after always considering it one of the driest golf course in the north east of England,” said the man who was fulfilling a wish to work on a sand golf course rather than having constantly to be kicking mud off his wellies.

He has some longer term ideas which may help the golf course in a number of ways.

“The 6th hole is a blind uphill hole which is not idea for cutting from my perspective nor from a health and safety perspective for players. Ultimately we could move a few thousand tonnes of sand and reduce the height of the hole and flatten it out.”

It is great to see such positivity in a tricky situation but those potential solutions are not for the immediate future and hoping the weather is kind, and the next spring tides are not too severe, are key to the course avoiding any more damaging events.

Ian is currently waiting to see what options emerge so that financial targets can be set and fund raising campaigns put in place.

So what’s happening at golfing HQ in St Andrews.

Well, the R&A is aware of the issue, and back in 2020 invested up to £650,000 to fund golf course sustainability projects.

That amount wasn’t ring fenced for coastal erosion, but also covering green quality and general agronomic projects.

The R&A did however commission an Aberdeen-based company, Siskin Asset Management, who had submitted a proposal for a demonstration project of their new concept.

Traditionally, durable defence against erosion is based on hard engineering. In place of this Siskin had developed a concept based on well recognised soft engineering techniques. These techniques have been enhanced to improve durability and resilience in common coastal conditions.

This delivers mitigation of erosion at a lower up front cost and reduced lifecycle cost while being deployable using only community level resources.

Being based on soft engineering methods the concept also has a low environmental footprint.

The method uses a by-product of forestry operations called brash, akin to old Christmas trees. This natural product is baled before being arranged in a defined geometry and anchored in the back beach area of soft coastlines.

This structure then acts to capture mobile sediment and promote re-vegetation of the existing coast.

The overall effect being to enhance the resilience of the coastline against wave and wind attack.

After assessing the project the R&A agreed to support and approved funding accordingly. Both the R&A’s and Siskin Asset Management’s websites carried the same information:

The planned demonstration project is targeting the installation of the novel system along an approx. 100m section of coastline currently suffering from erosion. Once installed the demonstration site will be monitored as part of a three year PhD project to evaluate system effectiveness and provide learning. Information gathered during the demonstration project will be disseminated via update reports, conferences and standard media channels.

That was back in 2020 and while Covid will undoubtedly have slowed progress on what was to be a three year PHD project, there has been no further updates on either of the websites.

I was told that the R&A was still awaiting the report from that research and that it might not be until next year before that changes.

To date, and to the best of my knowledge, no information gathered during the project has been shared by Siskin Asset Management.

With time of the essence for so many of golf’s crown jewels we do need some urgency, some joined up thinking and some leadership from those with the power to provide it.

Nature is a powerful foe but the thought of accepting defeat and seeing some of our classic links disappear would be too much to bear.

To misquote the Beatles once again…

Yesterday
All our troubles seemed so far away
Now at looks like they’re here to stay

We can only hope not, and that golf clubs like Fortrose & Rosemarkie, Alnmouth and so many others are not left out in the cold attempting to stem the tide at a cost many of them will struggle to afford.

If you want something done well, do it yourself!

/in /by

If you want something done well, do it yourself!: Scott MacCallum travelled to Northern Finland to find out more about Avant and their brand new battery technology.

Where better to develop new batteries than one of the northern-most locations on the planet? Avant are based in Tampare, Finland, 100 miles north of Helsinki, and a place which is renowned for being a bit chilly.

If you want something done well, do it yourself!

If you want something done well, do it yourself!

It is therefore perfectly suited to testing the extremes of new battery technology and, having developed a battery which can cope in such conditions, Avant has recently opened a new battery factory to product the power units to operate their sophisticated range of electric loaders.

“Following a lot of development we believe we have produced the perfect solution for our type of machine. Of course it is not the perfect solution for any kind of moving machine, but we don’t have a huge circumference to cover, compared to cars which need a huge infrastructure of for recharging points,” Avant CEO, Jani Käkelä, explained to Turf Matters.

“For us the electric vehicle are very viable as a solution of a way to create a machine with zero emissions. We don’t need a huge battery so the cost of the machine is still reasonable and then also the charging infrastructure doesn’t need to be too big. Overall the size of the machine has not altered from that of the diesel machine.

The Avant HQ, even taking away the stunning Nordic scenery, is impressive with the new battery factory fitting seamlessly into the overall plant, and it is the ability to produce their own batteries which is seen as a gateway to taking the company onto the next level.

The new OptiTemp battery packs feature a globally unique immersion lithium-ion technology offering Avant users several benefits.

The 4-module 27 kwh OptiTemp battery gives an electric Avant e5 loader twice the capacity of other loaders in its size class. With a 4-module battery it is possible to work the whole day with one single charge.

A globally unique thermal management system keeps the temperature optimised and gives you the same capacity in hot and freezing weather.

If you want something done well, do it yourself!

If you want something done well, do it yourself!

Rapid charging. Thanks to the structure of the battery, you can charge your battery in just one and a half hours with a rapid charger, which enables long workdays.

Unique solutions for safety – the structure and the immersion cooling system of the battery – guarantee 100% safe batteries. Avant has been producing compact loaders and attachments for over 30 years and they have risen to become the global market leader in their field.

But it was having worked with electric loaders and batteries for a number of years that the began to realise that there was no battery pack available to fulfil the needs of their loaders.

Since the battery factory – Avant Power, a subsidiary of Avant Tecno – was opened a few months ago he batteries now produced are truly fit for purpose – and fully capable of dealing with Finland’s extreme temperatures, but also in hotter temperatures in other parts of the world.

The new Avant e513 and Avant e527 loaders are almost identical, the only difference being the capacity of the batteries. The Avant e513 (13 kWh) is a good choice for short-term continuous use on cattle farms, horse stables, greenhouses or DIY and leisure time, for example.

The Avant e527 loader (27 kWh) with a larger battery is ideal for demanding professional use. Construction and demolition contractors will benefit from this model.

“For years, the market has been longing for fully electric loaders that would be more like diesel loaders in terms of functionality.

Until now, operating time and pricing have been key issues related to electric loaders, but with Avant’s new e series, we solve them both”, explained Jani.