Tag Archive for: Beat

ISEKI hard to beat at South Beds GC

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ISEKI hard to beat at South Beds GC: Tom Hooper, Course Manager at South Beds Golf Club in Luton, claims that his new ISEKI tractor is one of the best he has seen throughout his long and illustrious career.

Tom has been working at the club since 1896 and was appointed Course Manager in 2003. Throughout his tenure he has overseen many course improvements and has seen many technological advancements in terms of equipment. A wide range of equipment has come and gone at South Beds, but there hasn’t been many that has lived up to one of his newest purchases.

ISEKI hard to beat at South Beds GC

ISEKI hard to beat at South Beds GC

“Having experienced using many different tractors throughout my career, I would say ISEKI is one of the best,” said Tom. “It performs so well and is very spacious inside with a good flat floor, no trip hazards and is extremely comfortable.

“We decided to invest in the ISEKI tractor to replace our old tractor, which was very outdated and too large for the golf course. It just ticked a lot of boxes for us, including the price, the performance and the lift capacity was ideal because it needs to be able to lift a 400-litre tank.”

Tom purchased the TG6407 IQ which features an ISEKI Stage V, 3 cylinder 40hp diesel engine with IQ Dual-Clutch transmission F24/R24 that offers the control of a manual with the convenience of an automatic. There are 8 clutchless speeds and 3 ranges. Gears are changed by simply moving the gear lever through the straight shift gate. If ‘D’ is selected, then gears 4-8 are operated automatically – ideal for roadwork or towing. TG6407 IQ is available with ROPS or an air-conditioned Category 2 cab.

A front loader joystick, draft control, up stop PTO and linkage lift in reverse are all supplied as standard. The tractors are offered with either Ag or Turf tyres as standard. Optional loaders, either standard or with parallel lift are available.

“The IQ gearbox is very efficient,” continued Tom. “It is easy to operate, and you can go up and down the gears nice and smoothly.

“We use the tractor for all kinds of work including spraying, vertidraining, and lots of other tasks where we need to attach implements to it. It gives us plenty of horsepower but at the same time it is a nice and compact tractor which can go on all the greens in many different conditions.

“I would recommend it to any golf course or sports ground – its range of use is exceptional. All the staff are very happy with it.

As well as being pleased with the tractor, Tom was quick to praise ISEKI dealer RT Machinery – the company who he purchased it through.

“We were introduced to RT Machinery a couple of months before we purchased the ISEKI tractor – they were very friendly, very helpful, and easy to get on with.”

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Together, we’ll beat coronavirus

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Together, we’ll beat coronavirus: We at Turf Matters are well aware of the impact Coronavirus is having on every aspect of our lives.

It is something that has not been faced by any of us in our lifetimes.

Together, we’ll beat coronavirus

Together, we’ll beat coronavirus

We are all trying to get through the next few weeks and months as best as we can. Keeping working, if we are at all able to, helps retain some sort of normality in what are anything but normal times.

We are a small, close-knit industry which is good in so many ways. We always have someone to call on while help is always there when needed. In other ways it is not so good however. Being small makes us more vulnerable and we can lack the resources which help bigger industries cushion themselves through hard times. It can be a hand to mouth existence, something we’ve seen when weather extremes have impacted on various elements of our industry.

It all means we must stick together wherever possible. For that reason we at Turf Matters are giving a shout out to all our partnering companies.

We wish you all well over the difficult times ahead. You can be assured that Turf Matters will be with you, side by side, through it all.

We not only have our health to protect but our futures and we will provide all the help we can to showcase the work you continue to do and perhaps shine a light on the wonderful, often behind the scenes acts of kindness for which our great industry is known.

Let’s take care, let’s stay well, let’s stick together, let’s get through this.

Scott MacCallum, editor

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The Man Who Beat The Beast

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The Man Who Beat The Beast: When most of us were tucked up in bed, with the heating blasting and dreaming about what we were going to do with our football-free Saturday, Cambridge United stadium manager Ian Darler had other ideas.

In depths of the night, the stadium manager travelled to the Abbey, flicked on one floodlight and got to work.

The Man Who Beat The Beast

It was 4 a.m.

Heading towards his 40-year anniversary with the club, when we caught up with him just before kick off he seemed unfazed by not only the 3 am start that morning but also even getting the game on, despite it being only one of 10 to beat the ‘Beast from the East.’

“It would have been very easy to turn a blind eye and the game would have been off,” he said.

“But I just think you just do your duty. It’s your professional pride at the end of the day.”

Indeed, Darler and his team – made up of a dozen or so volunteers from CFU and his fishing friends – had a long-term plan to ensure the game went ahead.

The pitches had been covered for nine days but the freezing conditions were still proving too much for them to deal with as temperatures dropped to as low as minus-11 with windchil.

And a bit of ingenuity – from using a customised plough to getting the snow to act as an incubator – meant there was very little danger of the game being called off in the end.

 “To be honest getting the game on wasn’t the challenge,” he said.

“We’ve have had had pitch covers on for nine days as I always work to a 10-14 day programme.

“Apparently I came in for a bit of criticism on social media because I took the sheets of yesterday but I could see quite clearly the actual pitch was frozen and the covers were insulating the frost on the ground.

“We saw snow was coming and that it was likely to climb to zero. Obviously zero from minus six, minus seven is a massive thaw so the troops came in yesterday for me, we got all the sheets off and blew the layers of snow off and I was praying for the snow last night as I’ve used the snow as a incubator previously.

“Got up this morning about 3.30 am and went outside and saw it was 0.5 degrees and thought, ‘happy days!”

“I got in here, put one floodlight on, cracked on and by time the safety officer turned up all I had was about 25% of one corner to do.”

His efforts were recognised and he was, along with the other volunteers, named the man of the match during the U’s 1-1 draw with Luton Town.

And as Darler said, it would have been easy to let this game slip away like a majority of those in the Football League did.

And that’s is what is most impressive about this all. It took a lot of hard work, a lot of heart and shows how much people really do care about the club, and Darler, who has a book coming out about his 40 years working in football, was quick to thank all those involved.

“I have got the most amazing team of ground staff, which is made up by stewards who have worked for me for over 30 years,” he said

“They just appear like the borrowers and then a load of fishing mates come out the woodwork to bail me out.

“Because they’ve worked with me for so long I don’t have to tell them, they know what the process is.

“12, 14 people showed up in the end and six, seven were from CFU and seven or eight are my friends.

“I’m a fisherman, I’m used to going out a three o’clock in the morning!

“It’s a nice end. I’ve been quite fortunate had a publisher come forward and I’m having a book out about forty years working within the football world.

He added: “These days are great. It just gives you the opportunity to I’m just as keen now as I was 40 years ago. It’s always a challenge.

“I just love the challenge.”

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