A matter of trust

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A matter of trust: Scott MacCallum visits John O’Gaunt, one of the best golf clubs in England, and talks with Course Manager Nigel Broadwith about achieving results by working with like-minded professionals in pursuit of the same aim…

You know you’ve made it when you get something named after you. Think of Halley’s Comet; Nelson’s Column; the Bosman Ruling or Duckworth-Lewis. All act as everlasting memorials to Edmond; Horatio; Jean-Marc; Frank and Tony, respectively.

A matter of trust

A matter of trust

I have no real insight into the leisure interests of John of Gaunt, the 14th century English Prince, military leader, and statesman, but my guess would be that he wasn’t a golfer. The truth is that the game was very much in its infancy around that time, and while slow play wasn’t the issue then as it is now, the lack of courses, particularly inland, not to mention poor quality clubs and balls, had it down the sporting pecking order behind the more popular pursuits of archery and jousting.

So, the likelihood is that John would have been extremely surprised and delighted to know that he has lent his name to one of the best golf clubs in England.

John O’Gaunt Golf Club boasts two superb 18 hole courses – John O’Gaunt itself, and the newer, Carthagena – which are kept extremely busy by the club’s 1,500 members and guests. The man whose job it is to keep those members happy and produce high quality playing conditions over the two courses is Course Manager Nigel Broadwith, a quietly spoken Yorkshireman who leaves no stone unturned in his desire to achieve the best for his courses.

With 15 years at the club Nigel has seen his challenges change over his time at the helm, starting out with a need to improve greens.

“For the first three or four years it was just a case of aeration, aeration, aeration, to remove thatch from the greens,” recalled Nigel, as we sat on the clubhouse veranda looking out over the 18th green of the John O’Gaunt course.

“My first reaction had been that we were going to have to rebuild up to 12 of the greens, which would obviously have been expensive, but through our aeration programme the greens began to drain much better which was fantastic news,” he explained, adding that he restricted it to needle tining, to give himself the opportunity to carry it out more extensively without the disruption to play hollow coring would have caused.

“It became such a regular thing that members would come up to me and ask if I was micro-coring again, but after a year they started to see the improvements it brought.”

With the greens showing steady improvement, Nigel and his team turned their attention to the bunkers, another of the areas where there had been member concern, particularly about the type of sand used and the drainage. “We did a full bunker refurb on John O’Gaunt in-house and got contractors in for Carthegina,” explained Nigel, who also oversaw the levelling of all but five of the tees, putting in irrigation at the same time.

“We now only have one or two left to finish.”

But if you harboured thoughts that with improved greens, bunkers and tees meant that the work was done, you would be sadly mistaken.

The more regular weather extremes we are now all experiencing cause problems at John O’Gaunt.

“Last year drought meant that the only part of the course that was green were the greens. The rest was brown.”

A matter of trust

A matter of trust

The simplistic solution would be to install wall-to-wall irrigation, but nothing in life is straightforward.

“We are trialling fairway irrigation on the 12th fairway at the moment, and it is going very well. However, we are very limited in the amount of water to which we have access. Our summer licence allows us just 9,090 cubic litres, while over the last three years we’ve probably taken 3,000 to 4,000 cubic litres off the mains.

That is obviously expensive and is one of the reasons that we don’t have fairway irrigation,” said Nigel, who has been spending £10,000 per annum overseeding fairways for the last eight years, the effectiveness of which is obviously enhanced with natural and/or artificial watering.

Not to be denied, however, there is a John O’Gaunt masterplan.

“The trial was intended to show what we could achieve if we were able to get enough water for a full irrigation system. Since the start of the trial, we have moved on and installed a new ring main into the John O’Gaunt course so that irrigation can be added. The plan is to bolt on another 12 fairways in January.”

So, how are they going to get over the water limitations?

“We’ve just applied to increase our mains water limit and are getting a new meter installed. However, we also have a water treatment plant next door to us, so we are examining the option of being able to use the effluent water from there.”

Our clubhouse veranda meeting wasn’t a two-person affair. There were two other guests around the table, and while they are pertinent to the latest of Nigel’s John O’Gaunt improvement phases, to be discussed anon, their contributions stretch further than that.

David Snowden, of Agronomic Services, and Matt Corbould, of MR Amenity, have worked with Nigel for a number of years covering an increasing number of course-related issues.

A matter of trust

A matter of trust

“We analysed the water from the treatment plant to assess its quality and impact on the turf. The upside was obviously the quantity, the quality was the downside. While not perfect it was still usable,” explained David, who uses a world-renowned testing laboratory, Harris Labs, in Nebraska, who operate in conjunction with Ana-Lync. Ana-Lync provides a precise soil and water analysis giving an in-depth look at turf soil, comparing data from over 30,000 samples. This can reveal nutrient deficiencies and is exclusive to Floratine products.

The estimate for fairway irrigation is that they would require just short of 300 cubic litres per day and with 500 cubic litres of effluent water, of which 200 to 300 could be available to the club, a solution would be within touching distance.

So, with the irrigation piece soon to be placed into Nigel’s John O’Gaunt jigsaw, you would have imagined that he was delighted with progress during his time at the club.

Not entirely…

“About four years ago I was playing a bit of golf at other courses, some close to here and some further afield, and, while people had been saying that our greens were great, I was looking at those I was playing on and thinking I want my greens like these,” revealed Nigel, who was Deputy at Fulford, In York, before moving south.

Density, grass variety, evenness and the growing habits in winter and spring his main niggles.

At that point he chatted with Matt, who had been both a supplier and a trusted friend for some years, who in turn put Nigel in touch with David, a man with over 35 years industry experience.

When Nigel approached his committee and explained his thoughts, they agreed with his assertion about the benefits of moving up a level, the budgetary increase was signed off.

“We got a lot of support from the General Manager, Gordon MacLeod, who had recently joined the club and who was very proactive in his desire to make improvements wherever possible,” revealed David.

“His view was that if Nigel wanted to do it, let’s push on and do it.”

So, with the green light given, Nigel, David and Matt began to implement the required changes.

The word most used between Nigel, David and Matt is trust and you get the feeling from the three of them that the excellent professional relationship they have has spilled over into personal friendships.

“It was a process like that of gently turning around an oil tanker, slowly. That started with improving the quality of the growing medium – the root zone. Nigel had taken the plant as far as he realistically could, given the tools he had at his disposal at the time. He’d done a phenomenal job,” said David.

David has been a consultant for Floratine for over 30 years and has been a huge advocate for the company, the only one in the world that has developed and manufactures products specifically for turf.

“The concept behind true foliar feeding, using high quality raw materials, means that we would enter into a programme of regular feeding at small rates, which will get the plants growing at the same height with the same nutrition,” David explained.

Matt, whose previous career as a Course Manager has given him a certain empathy with his customers. MR Amenity is now an established distributor for Agronomic Service’s products, and they work together alongside the Course Managers and Greenkeeping Teams, bringing their combined expertise.

“There are not many brands in the world, other that Floratine, which can give you specific solutions for specific problems. To my mind, no other brand out there gives you such control,” explained Matt.

The Floratine scientists have pulled cool and warm season plants apart and looked at the DNA to identify the ratios of elements, then they source raw material from around the world to build the products which work most sympathetically with the plant.

A matter of trust

A matter of trust

In layman’s terms Nigel was provided with a toolbox containing 40 different “tools”, in the form of soil conditioners, foliar feeding and thatch busters, among a host of others.

That toolbox has given Nigel exactly what he has needed to make the improvements he was looking for.

“This year has probably been the best because I’ve done something every week for the last 10 weeks.

It’s a case of rather than thinking they look fantastic, but I’ll leave it a week before the next application, I’ve given them a little feed the next day,” said Nigel, who relies on his own increasingly informed judgement as well as advice from David. David’s heritage is from five generations of family farmers, so understanding plants and crops, is a way of life. He was fortunate to have worked for Lindum Turf for ten years, prior to his move to Floratine.

“We are working with a crop that grows 365 days a year, but from which you don’t want a yield. In farming terms you’d want to generate five tonnes to an acre by filling the plant full of nitrogen and other goodies but in our case the grass is growing all the time, but we don’t want a yield. We just want consistent new growth and it’s a never-ending process – a case of constant tweaking and riding the crest of the wave,” said David.

Nigel has also experimented in dropping the height of cut to 2.9mil something that has only been possible thanks to a healthier plant and well performing root zone.

“If you want to have a grass that can be cut lower you have to have a whole raft of things in place and take so much into consideration,” said David

“Are you going to hand mow or mow with a triple? Is your thatch level able to cope with the lower height of cut as you can’t cut low on spongy greens? How do you manage a cool season grass in 25 to 30 degrees”? David uses the analogy using the IV drip, replenishing the sport’s turf to avoid stress.

Nigel has trust in his processes and his products and has achieved his aims. He has received incredible feedback from members and guests, saying how fantastic his greens are – he thinks they are pretty good now too!

So, while John of Gaunt knows nothing of the golf club which carries his name, you can be sure that if he did, he would be more than delighted with the improvements Nigel and his team have implemented in recent years.

Getting to the roots of sustainability

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Getting to the roots of sustainability: Back in April, users of ‘turf Twitter’ bore witness to the effect extreme weather has on the sports turf industry.

A combination of 22 days of ground frost, record levels of sunshine and the fourth driest April on record made the preparing playing surfaces exceptionally challenging. Predictably, May was a washout with relentless heavy rain falling across most of the country.

Getting to the roots of sustainability

Getting to the roots of sustainability

Weather extremes add additional pressures and keep sustainability and climate change issues high on the industry’s agenda. The most commonly described approach to sustainability in turfgrass management is a reduction in inputs, such as fertiliser, fungicides and water, but grass breeders at Barenbrug have given turf managers the ability to underpin their sustainability strategy with Sustainable Grass Technology.

The result of years of specialist breeding, significant investment from the global leader in turfgrass seed production, and numerous independent and in-house trials, grasses in SGT blends have been bred to excel in one or more of four key areas of research;

  • nitrogen use efficiency to reduce fertiliser use and cost
  • drought tolerance to increase survival and reduce the need for irrigation in stress periods
  • increased disease tolerance to reduce fungicide use
  • lower clippings yield to reduce mowing frequency, labour and fuel consumption

“Our breeders had the foresight to anticipate the industry’s needs. These grasses have, in some instances, been decades in the making,” explained Dr David Greenshields, Barenbrug UK’s Amenity Commercial Manager.

“Our aim is to give turf managers all the desirable characteristics that help them meet the demands of the modern game, with minimal inputs, and for surfaces to retain their health, vibrancy and resilience under extreme conditions, such as drought or heavy wear. For turf managers looking to reduce their inputs and all the associated costs without compromising turf quality, using grasses specifically bred for that purpose and proven through independent testing is the ideal starting point.”

SGT’s breeding objectives led to the development of Barprium, a perennial ryegrass cultivar that has set a new benchmark for nitrogen efficiency.

Trials conducted at the STRI from 2016 to 2018 focused on identifying which perennial ryegrass varieties use lower levels of nitrogen most efficiently to deliver acceptable turf quality.

It compared the performance of seven of Barenbrug’s existing high performing perennial ryegrass cultivars against the new cultivar.

When low levels of nitrogen were applied to all cultivars, all performed to a good standard throughout the trials, but Barprium showed greater quality and coverage, even with a 50% nitrogen input. The other seven cultivars all ranked highly in the BSPB Turfgrass Seed Listings, making Barprium’s performance even more impressive.

Strong summer colour in Barprium has also proved an asset to the blend for low input golf fairways.

“SGT Rye Fairway is a great example of our global breeding and trials resource delivering excellent regional solutions. The fi ne fescue cultivars in the mix were selected for their sustainable performance characteristics,” explained David.

“Hardtop hard fescue and Barjessica strong creeping red fescue performed particularly well in periods of heat and drought.

Data from fi ne fescue performance trials conducted in 2018 showed that turf quality of hard fescue was unrivalled during the intense heat and drought of a memorable summer, and the recovery capacity of Barjessica was exceptional. The selected cultivars also provide excellent resistance to Red Thread – perfect for low nutrition fairways.”

David is urging Course Managers to consider the significant benefits of hard fescue on fairways.

“The summer of 2018 bought into sharp focus the situation turf managers face during lengthy periods without rainfall. Hard fescue has been used successfully on the continent, in the US and in Australia where summers are hotter and drier than ‘typical’ ones in the UK.

“It is the default species where there is no irrigation, which demonstrates its natural drought tolerance. It is also resilient and more nitrogen efficient than red fescue, and modern cultivars produce high quality turf.

“It currently makes up 50% and 20% of our two SGT mixtures, and I believe it will play a greater role in the long-term management of medium-fi ne turf with low maintenance requirements.

For new constructions and full renovations, sustainability starts with sowing the right cultivars. For established turf, overseeding with these new cultivars can enable the sward to adapt over time to provide additional resilience when and where it’s needed most.”

The school with its own sports village

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The school with its own sports village: There is a school in North Yorkshire which marches to its own beat. Celebrating the individual is at the heart of its ethos, with academic results to back-up its unique approach.

Queen Ethelburga’s Collegiate, in Thorpe Underwood, half-way between York and Harrogate, is one of most prestigious schools in the country.

The school with its own sports village

The school with its own sports village

In a trail blazing move in 2015 the school invested heavily in a new multi-million-pound Sports Village on the campus. Well, six years on that Sports Village is now well established, offering Queen Ethelburga’s pupils some of the finest facilities to be found anywhere and attracting top level professional teams for summer training.

The man whose role is to maintain the spectacular range of pitches and continually improve what is in place is someone whose own CV contains some of the biggest names and finest sporting venues around.

Ben Grigor was attracted by “a big advert” posted by Queen Ethelburga’s in the trade press and decided that what was on offer was an opportunity too good to miss.

“From memory it showed the pitches under construction,” recalled Ben.

“It very much looked like a job which would be a dream come true for whoever got it – to be building something from scratch ,” added the man whose CV contains the names of Rangers, at both Murray Park and Ibrox, and SIS Pitches, for which he was part of the early preparations for the Luzhniki Stadium, venue for the 2018 World Cup final, as well as other top sporting venues.

Having secured his interview, Ben’s approach during questioning was, to say the least, “high risk”.

“The CEO asked what I thought of the newly laid pitches. I’d had a walk round earlier in the day and picked up on a few things. So I said, ‘Can I be honest?’ When she agreed, I told her that actually the natural pitches needed improving.”

When constructed, the clay topsoil had been removed to install the drainage and the irrigation and then that original soil was put back on top.

“You are not going to get a high-performance pitch built on clay.

Ben’s honest assessment was taken in the spirit it was intended and the job was his. Things have not looked back since.

The school with its own sports village

The school with its own sports village

“We agree a budget at the beginning of the year and we then get on with it,” said Ben, tempting fate by adding that he hadn’t had a complaint in five years.

On day one Ben arrived with no staff and no equipment, but it was building the right team which was his priority.

“Machinery is only as good as the people using it. So, I wanted a good team. I set up the rotas and procedures at a level that you would expect at a top-level training ground or stadium,” said Ben.

“I needed people who weren’t concerned when told that they weren’t going to get a day off in July, when we might have Newcastle United or England Ladies here doing double training sessions. I needed a team who were happy to be going in at 7am and finishing at 8pm and enjoying doing the work for the teams.”

“I’ve got a fantastic team now, many of them have worked at stadiums in the Premier League environment,” said Ben.

With the closure of schools as part of the Government enforced lockdown, Ben placed himself on flexible furlough during the pandemic to enable him to spend more time with his children in Glasgow, but also to make more working hours available to his guys.

“I was very conscious of their own circumstances.”

As to the machinery, there may be some manufacturers kicking themselves for not paying more attention when Ben put his requirements out to tender.

“I’d created a list of our needs and specifications. For example, what we needed from a tractor – air con, number of kilos it would need to lift, the width etc. The Toro Pro Core was the only one that had a company name attached to it.

“I put it out to all the main names in the industry but only a couple got back to me at the time. Perhaps they thought we were just a small school!”

Ben works to ensure the team is getting the best deal long-term as his purchase of a Koro proves, “We started Koroing pitches in-house, when timings suit us best.

It paid for itself very quickly when set against bringing in contractors to do the work.”

Ben has taken on board a working practice that he first experienced when a young greenkeeper at Crow Wood Golf Club, just outside Glasgow.

“The two other greenkeepers and I were given our own six holes to look after and it created great competition between the three of us. You always take pride in what is yours. So here the guys have their own pitches to look after.

If there is a limited amount of fertiliser left they will ask if they can have it for their pitches and that creates a bit of healthy argument about who gets it,” said Ben.

Having teams set up training camps during the 10 weeks of the summer break is very much part of the estates commercial offer.

The school with its own sports village

The school with its own sports village

“Last summer when teams couldn’t go abroad, we hosted Newcastle United here. I think the team may have had reservations about coming to a school, but they were amazed at the quality of our facilities. So much so that they are looking to return again this year, if they are training in country again.” said Ben, who added that Leeds United also used the facilities while their own training ground was being renovated.

Queen Ethelburga’s facilities include five artificial pitches and a workout area, constructed by S&C Slatter; a five-a-bay cricket practice net facility; two multi-games areas for football, basketball and netball, a larger multi-games area for netball, tennis and basketball, a water-based hockey pitch. Every pitch is floodlit to a standard good enough for HD filming.

“We’ve also got three underwater treadmills, ice bath recovery and a sport science area. The CEO visited St George’s Park to see what was there before the project started.

Our facilities are equal to many of those in the Premiership.”

So why does Queen Ethelburga’s have such stunning sporting facilities, and what was the catalyst for investment such a vast sum of money?

Well, the school threw its hat into the ring in 2013 to be training base for one of the Rugby Union World Cup 2015 finalists only to be knocked back because the facilities weren’t up to the required standard.

“We were told that we were a lovely place but that our facilities were not up to it. All we were at the time was a traditional school playing field with no irrigation or anything else in place. They said that the accommodation and everything else required was great.” explained Ben.

While the new facilities have helped to maximise the sporting talents of some to move into the professional game, the ethos of Queen Ethelburga’s is very much to enhance the talents of their own students, right from nursery age, rather than to bring in pupils who have already been identified as having sporting potential.

One of those is certainly 17 year-old Jason Qareqare, who made a huge impact on his debut for Castleford Tigers against Hull. With his very first touch in professional rugby league, and less than a minute into the match he scored a brilliant try – a try you could say born on the playing fields of Queen Ethelburga’s.

Speaking with Ben you very much get a feeling of a man not only on top of his job but relishing the challenge of meeting the expectations of an ambitious school, prepared to invest in making itself the best it can be.

And while the career ladder for an ambitious groundsman might see a top school as a stopping off point on the way to a high-profile professional club, the job of a Head of Grounds at a top school can be very much a career pinnacle.

“Initially I think there were reservations by the school about how long I would stay, but I really I can’t see myself going anywhere else,” admitted Ben.

The improvements to the school pitches, which were the subject of Ben’s honest feedback at his interview, have been built and improved on as part of a planned phased programme.

The school with its own sports village

The school with its own sports village

“We’ve been rejuvenating the surfaces. As I say they were clay-based and while they had put in sand bands it wasn’t enough, so what we’ve been doing is stripping the surfaces off and replacing them with a sand profile on the surface.

“It has meant a fair amount of time and investment, but I’m pleased to say that they trusted me.

“Once we’d done the first pitch, the benefits were clear,” said Ben, whose aim is to get every pitch to the same level across the complex.

Much of the renovation work was carried out last year, whilst the campus had to remain closed to all but key worker students, but now the aim is to have all the pitches back and available all year.

“The school is our primary focus.

We want the teachers to be happy and we want the students to be happy with the service we provide.”

While Queen Ethelburga’s might have been ahead of the pack when investing in their facilities, other schools have since followed suit.

“What we achieved, nobody else was even considering, we were ahead of our time. We’ll need to keep being dedicated to continuous improvement though, to remain at the top of our game.”

That’s Queen Ethelburga’s. Always marching to that beat of its own drum.

Pitch perfect

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Pitch perfect: Scott MacCallum talks with Yves De Cocker, of PitchTecConcept, about his role in ensuring that our wonderful new stadiums have pitches to match.

It really has been a 21st century phenomenon. You can barely visit a city or large town without coming across one, and the transformation from the previous incarnations to what we have today is truly startling.

Pitch perfect

Pitch perfect

I’m talking about modern sports stadiums.

We’ve certainly come a long way from the grounds – they weren’t called stadiums in those days. Remember the old fashioned terraces, sometimes covered at the home end – a luxury the visiting supporters were rarely afforded? And the stands – where counter intuitively people sat – but often behind pillars, meaning a well-practiced neck swivel to retain continuity of the action.

Nostalgic? Undoubtedly. Comfortable? Never.

The new stadiums? On-site parking; not a bad view in the house and comfort of a level you’d expect to find at the Royal Opera House. No more cricking of your neck . And even better! If you miss a bit you can catch up on the giant screens at either end of the ground. Some stadia even have retractable roofs so the players won’t get wet, never mind you.

As I say, they are a phenomenon. But there have been, and still are, teething problems. With 360 degree stands, air doesn’t circulate, and the sun doesn’t have a chance to do its stuff to the turf. Pitches were being replaced on such a regularity that it was giving the Finance Director, never mind the Head Groundsman, palpitations.

Solutions have emerged – retractable pitches, grow lights etc- but there is still an issue that what has been regarded as the best stadium is not somewhere which is conducive to the growing of grass.

One man who wrestles with these issues on a daily basis is Yves De Cocker, the Managing Director of PitchTecConcept, and a man who has spent the last 20 years solving problems at some of the biggest and highest profile stadiums in the world.

He has four World Cups and three Olympics on his CV. This man knows how to make a pitch work under the most extreme circumstances.

“The whole set up of thinking about building a new stadium is completely different to what it was 20 years ago,” explained Yves, speaking from his home in Belgium.

“I don’t think that before the Emirates was built for Arsenal that anyone really realised that the centre stage of the stadium – literally – was the pitch . Ideally, the stadium designer should work his or her plans around the pitch.

“At the Emirates the pitch was at the centre of the whole project and you can see that now, because Arsenal have had an immaculate, fantastic, pitch ever since,” said Yves, who does admit that there often remains an unawareness of the importance of the pitch when the project is still on the designer’s table.

From Yves perspective he could see that on one side of the table were the stadium architects and designer while, on the other side, was the end users – the stadium owners and the football federations.

There was one thing missing.

“What was missing was someone, or some company, that could help the end user in determining exactly what their technological needs were and how they were going to maximise all of those technologies,” said Yves, whose approach to date has helped almost 900 clients.

“I want to bridge the gap between the customer and the pitch technology industry. I see myself as an external colleague for the end user, whose role is to make the most of their investment. A guardian of the concept who will not only make the most of the technology but also assist in making the client think more conceptually and holistically.

“If you are only going buy grow lights, or only going to buy a hybrid grass system your risk of failure is much higher than if you invest in a concept and work together to make it work,” said Yves, who has worked at three of the stadiums hosting the Euros, including Wembley.

Ideally the best time to lay out the concept it right at the very beginning and Yves knows that it is far better to prevent issues from arising in the first place rather than resolving issues which do emerge as the project develops.

“I’m a realistic guy and I know that most of the time I’m called in when its already in the construction or operational phase.

Pitch perfect

Pitch perfect

But it’s never too late to change what you’ve decided so long as you are willing to open your mind and you are prepared to rethink and reconsider what you’ve done.”

The message is, however, don’t start the design and then think about the pitch. Make sure the pitch is at the centre of everything.

Sounds straightforward but there are many mistakes made, and which continue to be made.

“One of the main reasons is that the people who are in charge of deciding what they are going to do, and how they are going to do it, are not fully aware of how the pitch technology principle works. Very often there is a difference in understanding between the grounds team and the people making the decisions.

“Grounds Managers don’t always get what they want, and the management doesn’t understand the needs of the groundsman

Therefore, what is often chosen is not the best option.”

With modern day stadiums you are dealing with huge sums of money and mistakes, avoidable mistakes, with regard to the pitch can be very expensive.

“One of my main challenges is to convince people that I’m not just here to earn money for PitchTecConcept, but that I can actually help them save, or even earn, money for their organisations.”

Yves has a three step process to how he conducts his consultations.

“Firstly, I ask what they expect from their new pitch and most of the time you can see them thinking ‘Does he really think that we don’t know what we want from our pitch?’.

But then you go into a little more depth and it becomes apparent that they haven’t really thought about it thoroughly. We are helping them to understand more fully what it is they want to achieve.

“Part two is to make an assessment of what already exists and that’s not only about the type of pitch they have and the equipment they have to maintain it. It is also about the culture of the club; how do they work with their pitch and the people who are responsible for it. We then produce a report and offer suggestions.”

Part three is very much an option, and isn’t something which carries a PitchTecConcept fee.

“They can take my advice to heart and try to implement it themselves and that’s fi ne. They can fi le it somewhere in the office and do nothing about it, which isn’t the best option, but does happen. The third option is that they want me to stay on board and talk with suppliers of pitch technology, determining what is really needed and start the implementation of it. Once it is all in place, they want us to continue with the on-going training of club, federation or stadium manager.

“I do not charge them forthis and it is part of an open discussion. The one proviso is that I work with industry partners and suppliers, because if I need to take responsibility for the end result,
I’m not going to work with people or companies that I don’t know.”

Yves has seen a real step change in the way business operates since he started in the industry 30 years ago.

“It used to be that you had a salesman and someone who was perhaps going to buy from you. It was almost like a fight between the two.

“Nowadays it is a much more open relationship. It is about working together to make the best out of what we can both do, and what value we can bring to the table so that I can do my job to the best of my ability and they can benefit from it.

“In my case the customer knows everything and it is a very easy way to work and I’m finding that more and more organisations are starting to like that idea.”

With the stadiums progressing in sophistication and in number, as those old favourites grounds are being replaced Yves, and PitchTecConcept, are likely to be extremely busy over the next few years.

Good things come to those who wait…

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Good things come to those who wait…: Scott MacCallum catches up with the most patient man in greenkeeping – Paul Larsen, who has had to wait an additional 12 months to prepare an Open Championship course.

The Open Championship at Royal St George’s Golf Club is going to be a wonderful event.

Good things come to those who wait…

Good things come to those who wait…

The course, one of the best on the Open rota, will be in immaculate condition, the weather will be superb and the golf will be exciting, irrespective of how many spectators are there to create the galleries.

How can I be so sure? Well, I’m merely following the old adage “Good things come to those who wait”, and oh how the club, and, in particular, Head Greenkeeper Paul Larsen and his team have had to wait.

At the beginning of last year everything was on track for The Open, in July. The long and medium term planning had gone well and Paul and his team were hoping for a good spell of weather in the months ahead so that the course would be fast and running, just how the R&A like it.

And then…

The decision was taken to postpone the Championship for a year on April 6, and immediately the date, which had been penned into the diary since 2017, when Royal St George’s hosting was announced, disappeared over the horizon.

“To be honest when the news about the postponement came through my mind wasn’t really on The Open. It was on the virus,” recalled Paul.

“I only had five people in, including myself, everyone else was on furlough, and we were just doing the bare essentials on the course to keep it going, as we were instructed to do. We also had the heatwave at the same time so we were hand watering everywhere and not really cutting.

“To be fair the fescue was thriving but The Open was suddenly in the background,” said Paul, who admitted that he was one of the first to take the virus seriously.

“Without going OTT we were doing all the cleaning of hands and equipment, which eventually was official advice, from the very beginning.”

With the US Open being moved from June to September, The Masters moving to November and some European Tour events being played before the original Open date, there were thoughts that a slightly shorter delay may be possible but Paul was pleased that the ultimate outcome was the end result.

“They have considered holding it later in the year but had they moved it to September there would have been light issues and it would have had to have been a reduced field, but around that time we were going into quite a severe lockdown.

“I personally think they made the right decision. There was no messing about, and everyone’s health came first,” said Paul.

The postponement was announcement before any of the huge stands or marquees had been erected but most of the underground infrastructure, TV cabling etc, was in place.

“In a way it has meant that they had a head start for this year,” reasoned Paul.

The club took the greenkeeping staff off furlough when it was deemed safe to do so and they took the opportunity to carry out work that was possible with the course devoid of golfers.

“It was great by the club that they took everyone off furlough and it meant we could get a lot of work done. We’ve done a lot of path reshaping which would have been difficult with golfers on the course and we’ve cleaned out a sand dune behind the 4th green, an area which might be in play.”

Ironically, the original Open week was an exceptionally busy one at Royal St George’s.

“We held an Open tournament for the members which was open to everyone and people could play off the Championship tees if they wanted to. We were getting 120 people playing each day and the weather was great and the course looked and played really well.

“So it would have been great for The Open if it was played.”

In fact, the week before history was made with the first ever professional ladies’ event held over the old links. The Justin Rose Series, a wonderful initiative to give ladies playing opportunities in these strange times, was played with a strong field of professional lady golfers. Gemma Dryburgh, of Scotland, was the first to have a Royal St George’s victory on her record, with a one under par round of 69.

With everything planned for, and geared up for, a particular week in the diary, having that date move by 12 months could have been deflating for Paul and his team. But not so.

“Keeping motivated, a problem?

Good things come to those who wait…

Good things come to those who wait…

Good question but ‘No’, in a word. The story goes back to when we lost a lot of grass in the drought of 2018. We hadn’t really recovered from that so when we were moved back a year we had great fairways and great playing surfaces in general, but our semi rough was quite hard to get back and contained quite a bit of soft broom.

“So the motivation has been to get that up to scratch . The guys have been hand-dressing the semi. I didn’t want top dressers over it, so we’ve done it in the old-fashioned manner.

The motivation was always there, but the extra 12 months has given us extra motivation to get it better.”

It actually made the very next question a little redundant, but being a stubborn so-and-so, I asked it anyway.

“Was there a date in the calendar that you went back into Championship mode?”

Not too bad eh? But an obvious answer…

But I did get a little more.

“At the end of the day, without the team I’ve got here the results wouldn’t be possible. They’ve been out hand shoveling top dressing day after day, over and over.

They’ve got on with it. It’s not just the hours they’ve put in, it’s the physical energy required to do it.

“I’ve worked on many golf courses and a lot of people think that you just sit on machines in the summer and that it’s easy. We do a lot of hand cutting here and it is physically demanding. They are very fi t from it and they have been absolutely brilliant for me,” said Paul.

Like all Head men Paul is rarely happy with the weather which is dished up to him – a Greenkeeper’s Rain Dance should be up there with the likes of the Argentine Tango and Charleston as a Strictly standard – and sure enough spring didn’t cut the mustard.

“We wanted a good spring, but we didn’t get it. However, this month (May) we’ve had 68mil so that’s rejuvenated everything. Had we had gone from a dry spring to a dry hot summer we’d have got no germination and all our work would have been done and we’d have had no dividend from it. But with all this rain you can see it coming up.”

Elsewhere the delay has meant that the bunkers will be a year older than they would have been.

“We didn’t build any the year before as we didn’t want them to look brand new but with quite a hard winter with a lot of snow we are finding cracks in some of them so we will be finding a way of freshening them up. I’ve got a few techniques to get them right, but they are at the end of their five year cycle.”

For the week itself Paul has had to tweak his original plan and call on his neighbouring golf clubs for help.

Good things come to those who wait…

Good things come to those who wait…

“It will be an unusual Open because normal the team and volunteers stay on site in Bunkabins for the 10 days before and during the Championship. Now everyone has to leave the site and go home at the end of each day and I have had to get 25 local volunteers to help. Normally we have guys for the other Open rota courses but that’s not happening either.”

So 25 local greenkeepers will have the opportunity of experiencing an Open.

“We’ve got to plan what each one will be doing, and we are hoping that they will come for a day’s training beforehand.

There will always be one of my guys with them. It’s going to be interesting. I’ll let you know how it goes after The Open.”

Thinking back to the last Royal St George’s Open – Darren Clarke’s popular win in 2011 – Paul, Deputy at the time had a job he is very pleased to be relinquishing.

“I was painting the holes and I couldn’t relax until the final hole was cut and white painted. I’m glad I’m not doing it this time!”

Despite having been the greenkeeper who has had to show more patience than any other in modern times for his Open to arrive, Paul hasn’t let his mind wander to the week itself.

“I don’t live for the future. I always have a plan, but I don’t particularly think about how I’m going to be feeling. I just accept it on the day. It is what it is, otherwise you are just worrying about what it is going to be like.”

But I really don’t think Paul and his team should be worrying. As I say “Good things come to those who wait”