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Ladyback Golf Club commit to Ventrac

February 10, 2025/in Machinery, News, Press Release/by Admin

Ladyback Golf Club commit to Ventrac: Ladybank Golf Club, situated in wooded heathland 10 miles west of St Andrews in Fife, is the latest prestigious Scottish golf club to purchase Ventrac equipment to assist in the maintenance of their challenging heathland championship course. Designed by Old Tom Morris, Ladybank is a rare course; although situated […]

Ticking boxes across the board

February 10, 2025/in News, Press Release/by Admin

Ticking boxes across the board: An FSI D60 tracked stump grinder has become the latest addition to the busy team at Proarb Professional Arboriculture – tackling commercial stump clearance tasks of all sizes and on all terrains. Complementing a smaller grinder already on their fleet, Managing Director John Paul Williams explains that in the few […]

Ladyback Golf Club commit to Ventrac

February 10, 2025/in Machinery, News, Press Release/by Admin

Ticking boxes across the board

February 10, 2025/in News, Press Release/by Admin

Full Sized Blog Element (Big Preview Pic)

Ladyback Golf Club commit to Ventrac

February 10, 2025/in Machinery, News, Press Release/by Admin

Ladyback Golf Club commit to Ventrac: Ladybank Golf Club, situated in wooded heathland 10 miles west of St Andrews in Fife, is the latest prestigious Scottish golf club to purchase Ventrac equipment to assist in the maintenance of their challenging heathland championship course.

Designed by Old Tom Morris, Ladybank is a rare course; although situated in Fife, it’s not one of the famous links courses that dots the coast. It measures almost 6,800 yards from the championship tees, making great use of its heathland terrain and has changed little over the years. It requires the golfer to display real precision to hit the small and contoured greens.

Ladyback Golf Club commit to Ventrac

Grant Frogley is the Course Manager and is responsible for a team of 8 full-time greenkeepers, who maintain this beautiful and challenging course. During the winter of 2021-22, the club purchased an ex-demo Ventrac 4500 all-terrain compact tractor and two attachments to help maintain the course.

“I’m one of the many converts to the Ventrac compact tractor and attachments,” he said. “We had two rough mowers when I came in, each one for different areas of the course. We’re a relatively flat site in terms of elevation, but we do have quite a lot of subtle movement with some extreme hollows and bumps. The rough mowers weren’t the best at following contours, so we found ourselves doing a lot more hand work.

“I’d seen the Ventrac at a demonstration at Gwest and knew it would be the perfect piece of kit here; a versatile machine that could do more than one task. We got it in on demo and sure enough it flew round, coped with every contour out there, without a problem.

“We’ve got the Contour deck and the Tough Cut deck. We use the Tough deck a lot during the winter to clean up the woodlands and remove the gorse and broom. We basically cut everything that’s not on the maintained grass areas. We cut every blade of grass during the winter, so it’s very versatile and mobile for getting in amongst the trees. As I said previously, it’s very good at removing brash, gorse and broom.

“It came with a rear three-point linkage kit, which is brilliant. We bought a small sprayer with hand lance that hooks up on the back of it and we also have a terra rake, which we use a lot during winter projects, especially if we’ve got soil that just needs a tilth-up before we re-turf. It’s brilliant and such a light footprint, it just glides over the surface.

“The options are endless; we’ve demoed the stump grinder and blower. We’ve got a rear-mounted blower on a tractor, and perhaps it’s just my age, but I find looking out the back for a period of time is very uncomfortable. The seating position on the Ventrac is very comfortable and the out-front blower makes it much more user-friendly. We’ve had nothing in the way of breakdowns, servicing has been fine, one little repair on the deck and it’s hardly missed a beat.”

Grant began his career at Gleneagles in 1999, working under Peter Pattenden, and six years later went to New Zealand for a year, before returning to Gleneagles at a time when the renovations for the Ryder Cup were taking place, remodelling the PGA Centenary course. This led to construction work at Dun Laoghaire Golf Club near Dublin followed by a spell in Sweden constructing the PGA of Sweden National Golf Course near Malmo.

Returning to the UK, he was appointed deputy course manager at Gwest, where a new championship course was being built next door to Gleneagles. Gwest never materialised into the great golf course and property that it could have been, so he took up his first course manager’s job at The Roxburghe in the Scottish Borders. Three and half years later he returned to Gwest as course manager, with a commitment from the owners that it would be completed. Covid struck and, and unfortunately, progress with the development stalled, so in 2021 he applied for, and was successful in securing, the vacant course manager’s position at Ladybank.

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Ticking boxes across the board

February 10, 2025/in News, Press Release/by Admin

Ticking boxes across the board: An FSI D60 tracked stump grinder has become the latest addition to the busy team at Proarb Professional Arboriculture – tackling commercial stump clearance tasks of all sizes and on all terrains.

Complementing a smaller grinder already on their fleet, Managing Director John Paul Williams explains that in the few short months following its delivery, the FSI D60 is already proving itself to be a robust and reliable workhorse.

Ticking boxes across the board

Proarb Professional Arboriculture was established in 2003 and has gone on to set the benchmark for domestic and commercial vegetation management across North Wales and the North West. The team of 40 work on a number of large-scale commercial contracts, including in the area of utility arboriculture, which is what drove the demand for an upgrade on the existing stump clearance solution. “I had seen lots of positive feedback and comments on social media about FSI and, while it wasn’t a brand we’d used before, it impressed us from the first demonstration” explains John Paul.

Boasting a 60hp Hatz diesel engine, the FSI D60 delivers impressive power and productivity combined with class-leading manoeuvrability and traction. Efficiency is further improved with the full-feature remote control system which provides the best possible view of the work area and facilitates the clearance of stumps in hard-to-reach areas in full safety.

“The track base and remote control is incredibly important for us because of the variety of terrain we have to work on. With the FSI D60 we enjoy the versatility of being able to navigate fields and other rural areas as well as having the ability to work in small, confined spaces with limited access as narrow as 800mm. We can also tackle stumps of all shapes and sizes with the machines impressive 2.2m sweep.”

He continues, “It ticked a lot of boxes. Not only did it fit our requirements in terms of specification, but it was also clear the machine was very well-built, good attention to detail right down to the high quality of paint finish.”

“In addition, our experience with dealer’s GGM – particularly their Arb Product Manager Phil Edmondson – has been excellent” he adds. “In our line of work, downtime costs money, so good back-up support is incredibly important to us. We feel confident in the service we’ve had from both GGM and the team at FSI that we are in safe hands.”

For the latest industry news visit turfmatters.co.uk/news

Get all of the big headlines, pictures, opinions and videos on stories that matter to you.

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram for fun, fresh and engaging content.

You can also find us on Facebook for more of your must-see news, features, videos and pictures from Turf Matters.

Half Sized Blog Element (Single Author Style)

Half Sized Blog Element (Multi Author Style)

Ladyback Golf Club commit to Ventrac

Ticking boxes across the board

Ladyback Golf Club commit to Ventrac

Ticking boxes across the board

Full Sized Blog Element (Big Preview Pic)

Ladyback Golf Club commit to Ventrac

Ladyback Golf Club commit to Ventrac: Ladybank Golf Club, situated in wooded heathland 10 miles west of St Andrews in Fife, is the latest prestigious Scottish golf club to purchase Ventrac equipment to assist in the maintenance of their challenging heathland championship course.

Ticking boxes across the board

Ticking boxes across the board: An FSI D60 tracked stump grinder has become the latest addition to the busy team at Proarb Professional Arboriculture – tackling commercial stump clearance tasks of all sizes and on all terrains.

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