Tag Archive for: golf

Le Golf National’s Short Game Area

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Le Golf National’s Short Game Area: Not content to rest on its laurels after the stunning success of last year’s Ryder Cup, the team at Le Golf National is continuing to invest in its facilities, building a substantial new training area for short game practice.

Located between the sixteenth green of the Albatros course and the club’s driving range, the new short game area housed a large grandstand during the Ryder Cup. “When the stand came down after the event, all the grass in the area was dead, so it was clear we needed to do something with the ground,” said Lucas Pierré, golf courses and estates manager at Le Golf National. “At the same time, we decided to rebuild all our training areas using better materials. They are really important for us and get a great deal of use, both from our paying golf customers and from our coaches running clinics for local schoolchildren.”

Le Golf National's Short Game Area

“The area between the sixteenth green and the driving range was ideal for this use, as it was already covered by our irrigation system,” said Pierré. “The new short game area was designed in house, jointly by me, by Alejandro Reyes [LGN’s former superintendent, now an agronomic consultant] and by our head golf teacher. We saved as much of the USGA rootzone as possible – it is quite large, with 3,000 sq m of green space, 4,000 sq m of surrounds and 1,000 sq m of sand, in two big bunkers.

“We already have Capillary Concrete on the Albatros course, and we are used to working with their French distributor, Stan Chapus of Greenmix,  so we know that the system works, and we decided on EcoBunker to create the bunker edging. Together they make an advanced system – not cheap, but they work well together. We can keep the sand on the bunker faces; it doesn’t wash down every time there is a big rain.’”

The new area will open in September for use by the local childrens’ golf schools, and be in use when the French Open returns to Le Golf National in October.

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Toro’s 100 Years In Golf

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Toro’s 100 Years In Golf: It’s doesn’t seem like five minutes ago the occasion of Toro’s 100 years in business in 2014 was marked. But now it’s time to celebrate the company’s centennial milestone serving the golf industry, and what a century it’s been.

Starting as it meant to go on, The Toro Company made its entry into the golf sector with product innovation by developing the industry’s first motorised fairway mower for the Minikahda Club in Minneapolis.

Toro's 100 Years In Golf

By mounting five lawn mowers on the front of a farm tractor, Toro created the motorised golf course equipment industry and in doing so started a century of listening closely to its customers, developing innovative products based on feedback and available technology, long-standing customer relationships, and establishing a distribution network to deliver great local service and support.

Reesink Turfcare, or Lely Turfcare as it was, has been part of that journey as the sole Toro distributor in the UK for golf and sports fields equipment and irrigation products for almost half that time. And as Toro’s four pillars for success so closely match Reesink’s, it’s no wonder it’s been such a long-lasting and rewarding partnership for all these years.

But the biggest reason for marking the occasion is to say thank you.

Grant Young, general manager of Toro’s Commercial Business, says: “Without a doubt, we owe much of our success to the Toro employees who have helped shape the golf industry with countless innovations. But we wouldn’t be here today without the Toro customers across the globe who put their faith and trust in our products every day. As we celebrate a century in the golf industry, we simply want to say thank you to our customers and channel partners for continuing to put your trust in Toro people and products.”

David Cole, managing director of Reesink Turfcare, says: “The first Toro product to hit UK shores was the Toro Greensmaster 3 at the beginning of the 1970s. That innovative ride-on product was born from Toro’s established golf focus and projected the brand into the UK as a producer of high quality, innovative golf equipment in the UK.

“Since then a reputation has been built that centres on reliability, durability and support and a mutual trust has developed between our customers, us as distributor and Toro which can be truly viewed as a partnership. We’re extremely proud to have represented Toro and its product values for so many years and we also thank our UK golf customers for their long-standing loyalty, confidence and trust.”

For more information, visit: reesinkturfcare.co.uk

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Pitch Vandalised With Golf Clubs

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Pitch Vandalised With Golf Clubs: A football club has hit out after vandals tore up their pitch with golf clubs only a week before their first pre-season friendly.

Billinghay Athletic Football Club, which competes in Division One of the Boston and District Saturday Football League, have criticised the actions of the vandals, which have left them with an uphill struggle to get the pitch ready in time.

Vandals armed with golf clubs made 20 holes in the pitch, while dog poo has also been found on the grass, in what the club secretary describes as a “kick in the teeth”.

Nathan Wood, who has also played for the club since he was a youth player, said it was not the first time they’ve had to deal with dog poo, but golf-related vandalism is a first.

“We’ve had issues for a long time with dog poo, but not with the golf,” he said. “We’ve not seen anybody do it, but we do find golf balls on the pitch.”

He added the vandalism, which is believed to have taken place on Saturday, July 6, was all the more frustrating after the club made great efforts to improve the quality of the pitch.

“Since we’ve taken over the club we’ve invested a lot of money,” he said. “We’ve bought a new lawnmower. There’s me and another guy taking two or three hours of our day, every couple of days to cut it.

“The grass they’ve chopped won’t grow back in time.”

Mr Wood added that although it wasn’t the worst thing that could happen, he felt the person who did was being “very irresponsible”.

“It’s nothing major, we are not saying it’s the end of the world,” he said. “The person who’s done it is very irresponsible. They’d done up to 20 holes. This person, for whatever reason, they’ve done it on the football pitch when they’ve the whole field to do it on.”

In a Facebook post on Sunday, July 7, the club hit out at members of the public who appear to have been using the pitch for non-footballing activities.

“Unfortunately after the football club has spent time and money cutting, marking out and repairing the pitch for the new season, somebody has decided to take chunks out the pitch playing gold,” it reads.

“We have no issue with people using the pitch in this way but please take your shots off the pitch. We have also had to remove numerous piles of dog poo off the pitch as well.

“We want a pitch everyone in the village would be proud of and need your help in succeeding.”

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Innovative Leadership In Sustainability Reporting By Golf

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Innovative Leadership In Sustainability Reporting By Golf: GEO Foundation, supported by multiple partners and stakeholders, has announced the development of a new and ground-breaking framework for golf’s social and environmental reporting – this news was shared in front of an audience of global sustainability systems, government agencies, non-government organisations, corporations and other institutions.

The announcement represents a significant watershed in how the sport can quantifiably and consistently track and demonstrate its progress and value.

Innovative Leadership In Sustainability Reporting By Golf

The Independent Chair of the project’s Strategic Advisory Group is Paul Druckman, former CEO of the International Integrated Reporting Council. Druckman said: “Golf is a large and influential sport, comprising over 34,000 grassroots facilities in over 200 countries, hundreds of professional tournaments and with a significant supply chain. It also has powerful media and reach, and can inspire hundreds of thousands of fans.

“Golf is not unique amongst business to increasingly recognise the need to consistently measure and communicate with credibility its environmental and social impact. Through this work, golf is also gearing up to show how the sport delivers against global priorities, principally the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals’’.

Jonathan Smith, Executive Director of GEO Foundation, the international not-for-profit dedicated to helping advance sustainability in and through golf, added: “The goal is to enable golf to accurately monitor, measure and communicate real impacts, and to connect that locally, nationally and internationally. It has been a complex but enjoyable challenge – studying, collaborating, developing a deep understanding of the priority metrics, mapping audiences and building user-centric software to simplify data gathering at scale.

The project began a year ago after discussion hosted by the Vidauban Foundation and the response from golf associations, as well as externally, has been tremendous. We’d particularly like to thank strategic partners: The R&A, Vidauban Foundation, Toro Foundation, and the ISEAL Innovations Fund, plus over 150 scientists, association leaders and grassroots golf course and club managers – who contributed to the various consultations.”

The framework is designed to help golf more consistently quantify and communicate its ‘net impact’ across golf’s ‘Sustainability Agenda’. As such it covers the material environmental and social issues across three main themes: fostering nature, conserving resources and supporting communities.

To ensure credibility and connectivity, the framework aligns closely with mainstream sustainability goals and reporting systems and is underpinned by the core principles of inclusiveness, materiality, reliability and context. It will be available in the coming months.

With both golf’s voluntary standards and the new metrics fully integrated into OnCourse, the software solution used to engage golf facilities, tournaments and associations; the next phase is to work closely with partners to roll-out, engage and drive active participation. OnCourse is currently used in 76 countries around the world and is available in nine languages.

“We look forward to working with many partners across golf to roll-out the framework and the software, empowering them, their golf facilities and their tournaments to drive individual performance and at the same time pool real data and stories from thousands of sources. This will support the strengthening advocacy and policies of a growing number of international and national associations,” Smith added.

Initial support for the project

Patrick Mallet, Director of Innovations, ISEAL Alliance: “Anyone who’s serious about sustainability knows that the ability to measure performance and impacts is key.  What we like about GEO’s approach is that here we have an example of a sector that is seeking to become more transparent, and shortening the distance between commitments, actions and communicable outcomes.  Building a framework and associated software for issues as complex as these, and for small and medium-sized enterprises like sports clubs is no mean feat and we congratulate everyone involved for their commitment and their creativity.”

Steve Isaac, Director of Sustainability, The R&A: “The R&A has long advocated the value of golf building a robust database of key performance indicators to measure and report on golf’s sustainability performance locally, nationally and internationally. Our support of the GEO Foundation and this project, in particular, should help golf understand its current performance, identify priority areas for improvement, enhance the sport’s image and help the sport become more resilient to the many environmentally and socially driven challenges we face related to the changing climate, regulation or resource constraints. We are extremely pleased to see this initial milestone achieved and look forward to further collaboration with GEO and our affiliates around the world to engage grassroots clubs in the gathering, analysis and communication of data back across the sport of golf and to external audiences.”

Antony Scanlon, Chief Executive of the International Golf Federation: “This is a really exciting project and one that we can see is at the forefront of the Olympic sustainability movement. It is good to see golf sharing knowledge and experiences with other sports and throughout the Olympic family, as we all work together to make sport as sustainable as possible.”

Judson McNeil, President, Toro Foundation, Toro Giving and Community Relations at The Toro Company: “Every sector’s use of critical natural resources such as water is under scrutiny. We have to be able to account for every drop and show how we are maximising efficiency. That can only happen with data, which is expertly analysed. That is why the Toro Company has supported GEO Foundation in their endeavours over many years and why we will continue to lend our support and expertise in the future.”

Julie Duffus, Olympic Movement Sustainability Manager, International Olympic Committee: “This framework is excellent news for golf, the Olympic Movement and global sustainability. As the leader of the Olympic Movement, the IOC looks forward to engaging further on this exciting initiative and supporting its implementation. We hope that GEO’s leadership will inspire others to adopt such a systematic and holistic approach to sustainability.”

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Toro At Peterborough Golf Clubs

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Toro At Peterborough Golf Clubs: The family-managed duo of golf courses, Thorpe Wood Golf Course and Orton Meadows Golf Course in Peterborough, continues its joint ambition to switch to Toro with the arrival of its latest fleet.

Golf is in Simon Fitton’s blood. Not only is he a fourth-generation golf professional, he’s also the third generation of the Fitton family to be managing the two courses. Simon assumed the role of managing director of Nene Golf Ltd, the company managing both sites, in 2010 and has been adding more Toro to the shed on an annual basis – and has also added a rescue dog called Toro to the ranks!

Toro At Peterborough Golf Clubs

Simon says: “I took over the company from my dad in 2010, but the first Toro arrived a decade before me. Since then, we’ve been on route to becoming all Toro and I foresee that being achieved in three to four years. Every year we switch more out and get one step closer.”

The reason for this, Simon says, is the service from Reesink Turfcare and rep Julian Copping is “surprisingly good” and the quality and reliability from Toro is “sound”.

“I met Julian pretty much as soon as I joined and the relationship was there straight away. It was all good, actually surprisingly good – very natural – and as a result it has easily developed into what it is today. Julian continues to help us sort out what we need and makes the process very easy.”

The machines delivered in this most recent order includes, among others, a Reelmaster 3100-D with Sidewinder, Workman HDX utility vehicle, ProPass 200 topdresser and an ex-demo SandPro 5040, which, with up to 17 attachments all of which can be changed in under a minute, is the perfect addition for two busy clubs.

So, with the machinery replacement programme taken care of, Simon can concentrate on the recent developments across both courses driven by the changing industry: “We’re already unusual in that we’re a business comprising two courses, in two locations offering our customers two great challenges. But the industry is changing and we’re making updates to both courses to make sure we don’t get left behind. These include a 23-bay covered floodlit driving range, the building of which meant we had to adjust parts of the course to accommodate it, a large putting green by the first tee and a chipping tee by the 10th. Meanwhile, Orton Meadows has an updated 12-hole Pitch and Putt course to introduce more people in the area to the game and provide somewhere for players in the area to perfect their shots.”

With two 18-hole courses and all these new additions to the clubs, it is probably quite a challenging role for Toro? “You’d never notice,” says Simon. “Toro takes everything we throw at it, whether it’s course maintenance or more challenging build projects, in its stride. And you can really notice the difference as we get more Toro – you see how the quality cut, finish and care spreads to cover more of the course.”

So how about Toro the dog, how does he fit into the story? “That’s a story that was just meant to be,” says Simon. “I already had a dog called Welly and although I wasn’t looking for another, I’d heard of a rescue dog that needed a home. His name was Toro and as soon as I saw him I knew he was coming home with me! I don’t know why he was given the name of Toro but it certainly suits us – he arrived and in the same week so did a new arrival of Toro machines!”

For more information, visit: reesinkturfcare.co.uk

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