Tag Archive for: Goes

Prestigious Club Goes All In For Toro

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Prestigious Club Goes All In For Toro: At the pinnacle of St George’s Hill Golf Club sits its iconic clubhouse, casting an eye over its three nine-hole courses widely regarded as Harry Colt’s crowning glory, and now in the hands of Toro to uphold.

Set within an exclusive private estate in Surrey, the club was in need of a fleet of turfcare machinery to maintain the high standards of the course, and it was a complete Toro package that proved to hit the mark with the club signing its first ever five-year agreement plan with Toro and its distributor Reesink Turfcare.

Prestigious Club Goes All In For Toro

The historic club provides one of the most exclusive golfing experiences, currently ranked No.63 in the World by Golf Digest Magazine. With so much history and expectation, course manager Chris Godsen says the pressure to provide the very best is always on.

“Every day here is a big day,” he explains. “Everyone who comes to play is looking for the best and wanting an experience like no other, so we have to work to provide that every day, no exceptions.”

With the club boasting 500 members and the estate home to 420 houses, having a comprehensive and efficient fleet is vitally important.

“The fleet here was already about 90 percent Toro,” Chris says. “But we wanted to invest in new machines, so we’d be up to date with the latest tech and innovation.”

Despite looking at a range of options with other brands before making a commitment, for Chris, Toro was the only choice.

“We did look at a couple of other brands, but there would always be one or two unreliable machines that would really let the package down. But with Toro, there isn’t one piece of kit I can see doing that. Toro always has far superior machines that are durable, reliable and state-of-the-art, which is just what a prestigious club like St George’s Hill needs.”

And club secretary Gary Peddie agrees: “The decision to choose Toro was a relatively easy one. They are recognised in the industry as a leading manufacturer of golf course machinery. That position sits very well alongside St George’s Hill Golf Club, as we look to deliver the best in golf course conditioning.”

With the package deal comprising near thirty pieces, including three Greensmaster 3250-Ds, three Reelmaster 3555-Ds, two Groundsmaster 4300-Ds, four Workman HDX-Ds and a ProPass 200 to name a few, Chris is excited to put the new comprehensive fleet to work.

“We’re particularly excited to trial our new lightweight mowers as we haven’t had them before. The Multi Pro 5800-D sprayer is also going to be a big help. It’s bigger and faster than what we have now, so we’ll be able to get more coverage in less time.

“I’m confident this agreement is just the start of an ongoing partnership,” says Chris. “The service from Reesink has always been great and now with a full fleet of Toro equipment, I have total peace of mind that the course is in good hands.”

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Greentech Goes For GKB

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Greentech Goes For GKB: Greentech Sportsturf is one of Scotland’s leading sports turf contractors and specialists in design, construction , renovation and maintenance of sports surfaces. There’s an impressive list of fields of play the company has worked on, including Gleneagles, Hampden Park and Oriam sports performance centre. It follows then there is a need for quality equipment which is right for the job when you’re maintaining sports turf, both natural and synthetic, across Scotland and handling projects throughout the UK and Ireland. Greentech invested in two GKB machines, the Quick Clean and Rotobrush after seeing them at the Saltex exhibition and following demonstrations set up by Tom Shinkins, Operations Manager at GKB.

“We looked at the whole market in synthetic turf cleaners and renovators but in the end it wasn’t hard to choose. The GKB machines are far and away a quality build and do the job they’re designed to do better than the others we tested.” Says Greentech’s Synthetic Turf Manager, Ewan Peddie. Due to the weather conditions Greentech had to wait until early May before being able to start treating synthetic surfaces and the machines have endured a punishing schedule in the catch-up.

Greentech Goes For GKB

The GKB Quick Clean has been noted for its powerful in-depth cleaning of all types of synthetic turf pitches Greentech have been working on. It’s easily hitched and the synthetic turf brush casts infill material and contamination onto a vibrating screen. Coarse dirt is removed to a collection container while dust and other lightweight dirt is absorbed by a suction unit with a dust bag. The result is a quality finish after cleaning at high speed with a reliable machine that is fully height adjustable.

Brushing the edges of synthetic turf pitches is important and generally it’s where the most persistant contamination will be found in the form of moss and algae settlement. Greentech put their GKB Rotobrush to work with good effect from the extra rigid bristles and report a deeper, more effective brush in areas where normal brushing and cleaning are not sufficient. They found the Rotobrush ideal for working with and restoring the technical characteristics of the synthetic surfaces they were cleaning, while removing the contamination.

“We’re constantly moving around covering maintenance on synthetic sports surfaces of a wide variety, from Local Authorities, to schools and main sports venues,” says Ewan, “and the GKB machines are ideal, especially for the speed at which we need to work.”

For more information, visit: www.gkbmachines.com

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Waveney Norse Goes Toro

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Waveney Norse Goes Toro: Waveney Norse have made their first investment in Toro as part of a new grounds strategy to better meet the requirements of its core partner Waveney District Council and its growing customer base.

Operating as part of Norse Commercial Services, a major national supplier of facilities management services to the public and private sector, Waveney Norse previously used a tractor-drawn gang mower to maintain all sports fields and open spaces across the Waveney District in the East of England.

Waveney Norse Goes Toro

As Waveney Norse maintains a host of sites across the district’s 370.4km sq area, and with a wider area to cover thanks to their growing private customer-base, it was a good time to rethink the company’s grounds strategy. Central to this was changing from mowing with a tractor to a dedicated ride-on Toro T4240 cylinder mower.

Grounds operations manager, Richard Hackney, explains: “We have been lucky enough to win new work over a wide geographic area and driving a tractor long distances is inefficient in both manpower and fuel. The Toro mower solves this problem because we can simply fold up its wings and put it on a trailer. This will enable us to deliver best value even when our customers are further afield.”

Richard isn’t alone in his praise for the T4240, he says: “Our operator is very positive about the Toro’s manoeuvrability around obstacles, as the cutting units can be lifted and it has a smaller turning circle than the tractor.”

He adds: “Overall it’s a quick, efficient machine that provides a good quality cut. Downsizing to a ride-on mower also gives us flexibility for who can operate it. We have a 48-strong team and any of them could be easily trained to use it.”

The purchase was delivered with good service from Reesink sales representative Danny Lake who, Richard says, was very helpful in organising a demonstration at local Normanston Park.

Richard explains: “We haven’t traditionally used Toro, so wanted a demonstration to make sure it was right for us. We did consider an alternative supplier for this type of machine but had feedback from another company that, although their competitor machine was fit for purpose, they found it overdesigned, which led to more opportunities for issues to take place.

“This prompted us to review the market thoroughly and choose a robust, simple-to-use Toro mower that will deliver on our requirements. We are very pleased with our decision: the machine will enable us to continue to deliver highly professional, reliable grounds services to our customers at a best value price, no matter where they are based.”

For more information, visit: reesinkturfcare.co.uk

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Notts Hollinwell Goes For Green

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Notts Hollinwell Goes For Green: Currently rated as the UK’s 40th best course by Golf World Top 100 and by National Club Golfer as an England Top 20 course, Notts Golf Club Hollinwell is renowned as one of the country’s finest inland courses, with heather, gorse, bracken and pine in abundance.

It has also been described as “one of the best heathland courses in Britain” by BBC commentator and former Ryder Cup player Ken Brown. The club has continued the course and environmental improvements accomplished over recent years and for the second year running will host a Final Qualifying tournament for The Open, at Carnoustie in July 2018.

Notts Hollinwell Goes For Green

In 2017, Notts (Hollinwell) successfully staged Final Qualifying for The Open at Royal Birkdale. The course was presented in excellent condition and the event ran very smoothly, thanks to the enthusiastic efforts of staff – not least the greenkeeping team led by course manager Phil Stain – members and volunteers.

“The club is always pushing for higher standards and there’s been a lot of investment in the course over the last couple of years, so it’s very satisfying to be recognised at this level,” says Phil. “The course is now being managed more intensively and our bent/fescue overseeding programme is progressing really well, as we try to get the greens back to predominantly fine grasses. Mowing frequency has also been increased, so the reliability of our course machinery continues to be a major requirement.”

Part of the ongoing investment programme has seen the purchase of a new fleet of seven John Deere machines from Nottingham based dealership Henton & Chattell, on a John Deere Financial five-year operating lease. These include four 2500E electric hybrid triplex greens mowers, an 8800A TerrainCut rotary rough mower featuring the programmable TechControl display, and two ProGator heavy-duty utility vehicles.

“The machines were due for replacement, as it’s been five years since the last upgrade,” says Phil. “We’ve been more than happy with our previous John Deere 2500E greens mowers, which were the first ones we bought. They’ve provided the standard of finish and reliability we look for, and the dealer service from Henton & Chattell and sales manager James Robson has been very good.

“We always choose the best machines for the job, in our opinion, so we’re not particularly committed to one individual brand over any other. However, having tried the competition we found the John Deere greens mowers ticked all the boxes, so we had no reason to change – we’ve had virtually no problems with them whatsoever, so there was no need to look elsewhere. All round the 2500E is a very good, reliable machine – our old models still have plenty of life in them and are going back to the dealer in very good condition.

“The 8800A cuts all the semi-rough and provides a massive time saving, as well as a good quality finish, plus it’s also a very reliable mower. The ProGators are new machines for us, as we’ve only had them on demonstration before. The industry feedback I get is that the Gator is one of the most robust machines out there, so I’m very happy to go with the opinions of other greenkeepers that I trust.”

For more information, visit: www.JohnDeere.co.uk

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