Tag Archive for: Open

Syngenta Operation Pollinator Award open for entries

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Syngenta Operation Pollinator Award open for entries: The Syngenta Operation Pollinator Award 2026 is open for entries.

The Award  seeks to reward golf clubs and other sport facilities proactively creating areas for all pollinator insects, along with managing other ecology initiatives that enhance the biodiversity alongside playing surfaces.

Syngenta Operation Pollinator Award open for entries

Syngenta Operation Pollinator Award open for entries

There are no Golf Environment Awards taking place for 2026, so the Syngenta Operation Pollinator Award will be presented at the prestigious BIGGA Awards Evening at BTME, Harrogate in January.

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The Award, open for UK golf clubs and sport facilities, is being managed by the STRI and judged by an independent industry panel, including the Wildlife Trust, BIGGA and last year’s Operation Pollinator Award winner, Melissa Winkworth of Goring & Streatley Golf Club.

Entry is a simple on-line questionnaire and sending in photos, detailing what you do, what has been seen and how it is communicated with players and the public, along with how ecology initiatives fit with the overall turf management. A short-list of finalists will be contacted for a discussion with leading STRI ecologist, Stella Rixon.

She advocates the Operation Pollinator Award provides a great opportunity for greenkeepers and the golf industry to showcase the immense ecological resource that has been created.

“It’s a good news story for you, your team and your club,” adds Stella.

Syngenta Turf Business Manager, Sarah Hughes, highlights with all the golf clubs actively signed-up and engaged in the initiative Operation Pollinator has been shown to have a place on every course.

“Together, the clubs involved with Operation Pollinator have created a vast network of habitats for pollinating insects and wider biodiversity in well managed habitats, alongside managing turf for golf and sport,” she says.

“Using Operation Pollinator to learn from each other’s experiences and share best practices for both habitat management and communicating with clubs and players is a huge benefit, and a great way for the industry to demonstrate the value of golf as a positive ecological resource.

“We urge all clubs to get involved; sign-up now and enter for the Operation Pollinator Award.”

Operation Pollinator aims to support golf clubs and sports facilities to establish and manage areas that will provide essential food resources and nesting habitat for pollinators, including native bees, butterflies and other insects.

The initiative brings together a community of turf managers to help each other and share their successes and experience, along with demonstrating the immense ecological value of managed amenity turf areas.

Entries for Operation Pollinator Award 2026 close on Friday 21st November.

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Registration Now Open for The MENA TURF SHOW 2026

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Registration Now Open for The MENA TURF SHOW 2026: Organisers of The MENA TURF SHOW are delighted to announce that registration is officially open for the 2026 event, scheduled for Friday 17 April 2026, at the prestigious Park Hyatt Dubai.

Celebrating its impact on turf, landscaping, and green space management across the Middle East and North Africa, The MENA TURF SHOW brings together industry leaders, specialists, and decision-makers for a powerful day of innovation, education, and collaboration.

Registration Now Open for The MENA TURF SHOW 2026

Registration Now Open for The MENA TURF SHOW 2026

“We are thrilled to open registration for this year’s MENA TURF SHOW,” said Nick Brown of Campey Turf Care Systems. “The UAE region has lacked a dedicated event where professionals can meet, connect, and exchange knowledge—until now. With a perfect spring date and the iconic Park Hyatt Dubai venue, we’re focused on driving conversations around sustainability, turf science, smart irrigation, and best practices specific to our regional climate.”

2026 MENA TURF SHOW Highlights:

• Expert-led sessions bringing education that can transform how we care for sports surfaces and
landscapes in this unique environment
• Networking with top suppliers, contractors, groundskeepers, and golf/sports turf managers
• Exclusive insights on regional challenges

Secure your place now for an event not to be missed!

Venue: Hall: Creek A, Park Hyatt Dubai, UAE
Date: 17 April 2026

Register or learn more: www.themeanturfshow.com

Stay up to date—follow us on social media with #MENATurfShow2026 for insights, speaker announcements, and exhibitor reveals.

Connect. Discover. Grow. See you at The MENA TURF SHOW in Dubai on 17 April 2026.

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Wildwood Machinery’s first Open Day a success

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Wildwood Machinery’s first Open Day a success: A host of the biggest brands in ground and turfcare were on show at Wildwood Machinery’s first Open Day, at East Horton Golf Club on 3 July, attended by groundcare professionals and buyers from across Southern England.

Wildwood Machinery Managing Director, James Bastian said: “We put on the Open Day to thank our partners, suppliers, staff and customers. It was an opportunity to showcase our growing range of state-of-the-art machinery, and I wanted to do it in an environment where everyone could relax and have a bit of fun, but also try putting the machinery through its paces.”

Wildwood Machinery’s first Open Day a success

Wildwood Machinery’s first Open Day a success

“We’re very lucky that East Horton Golf Club is a core part of our family business and it proved to be the perfect venue. Lots of our guests were also able to enjoy a round of golf as part of the day – a perfect mix of business and pleasure!”

“We can all sit at our desks sending emails and making phone calls”, says James, “but ultimately, we want the end user to get their hands on this equipment and see just how good it is.”

Manufacturers showcasing their wares included: Aspen, DeWalt, ECHO Robotics, Gambetti Amenity & Golf, INFINICUT, ISEKI, Jacobsen, Ransomes, Raymo, RovMo, Stogger and Wessex International.

According to James Bastian, the Wildwood Machinery Open Day was “such a huge success that we’re already looking forward to doing it again next year – but bigger and better!”

“The whole environment had a lovely vibe about it today. We’ve had great support from our manufacturers and our customers have turned out in force. What more could we have asked for?”

The next major event for Wildwood Machinery, marking the company’s rapid growth since launching in 2022, is the opening of a purpose-built new showroom and headquarters on the East Horton site, scheduled for late 2025.

With a growing number of elite sports clubs, local authorities, estates and schools tapping into Wildwood’s unmatched range of manufacturer partnerships and reliable after-sales service, the business has grown steadily throughout 2025, necessitating more showroom and workshop space.

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Amenity Sprayer Operator of the Year open for entries

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Amenity Sprayer Operator of the Year open for entries: The search is on to recognise the UK’s most professional sprayer operators in the sports turf, amenity and landscape management industries.

The Amenity Sprayer Operator of the Year (ASOOTY) Awards highlight best practice and experience in the challenging role of ensuring accurate application on all amenity surfaces.

Amenity Sprayer Operator of the Year open for entries

Amenity Sprayer Operator of the Year open for entries

The Amenity Forum competition, supported by ICL and Syngenta, seeks to share guidance and advice that will raise the standards of spray application across the amenity industry.

You could be a lawncare professional in Essex, working on a golf course from Glasgow to Perranporth, treating roadsides or railways in York, or spraying grounds in Cardiff – all are welcome to apply

The Awards’ finalists will be announced at the Amenity Forum Conference in October, with the overall winner presented at the prestigious BIGGA Awards ceremony at BTME in January 2026.

Amenity businesses and sports turf managers are urged to actively encourage their sprayer operators to enter the awards this year.

All ASOOTY applicants will also be entered into a competition to win one of five Syngenta Sprayer Calibration & Application Kits.

Along with assessing operators’ skills of spray application and use of products, the ASOOTY judging panel also now incorporate the importance of an integrated turf management (ITM) approach to any issues involving turf and landscape maintenance.

Announcing the opening of the ASOOTY 2025 Awards, Amenity Forum Chairman, Ian Graham, announced: “This competition seeks to highlight the remarkable talent that exists within our sector, and I encourage as many spray operators as possible to engage with the process.

“Our industry has many highly skilled spray operators working within it, using a diverse range of products accurately applied through a huge range of complex application equipment. Past winners have ably demonstrated the professional approach to meeting  these challenges.”

Syngenta Technical Manager, Sean Loakes, highlighted: “The skills of sprayer operators to make efficient, effective and above all safe applications is essential for the future sustainability of the amenity and turf care industry.

“The ASOOTY awards are a welcome way to recognise and reward the leading individuals and to learn from their experience,” he says.

Last year’s winner, Peter Pattenden, professional spray technician at Carden Park Golf Resort in, Cheshire encourages all sprayer operators to get involved and enter the ASOOTY Awards. Even at a relatively young age, his understanding of the spraying process and exemplary commitment to achieving consistent accuracy was evident.

ICL Landscape & Industrial Business Manager, Lewis Blois, added: “We are delighted to support such an important cross-sector industry initiative, with a continued commitment to raise standards and improve results.

“Importantly it provides a unique and vitally important resource for all involved in spray application across the amenity sector,” he points out.

The entry process aims to test sprayer operators’ broader knowledge of issues and solutions faced across the amenity sector through an initial on-line question form, including questions to assess an individual’s experience and approach to dealing with challenges.

It’s seeking to find operators that can make those important proactive decisions with every application

Entries to the ASOOTY Awards 2025 closes on Friday 12 September. The on-line entry form is available at:  https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DB9LCNS

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Toro maintains championship course for The Open

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Toro maintains championship course for The Open: Once again Toro machinery and irrigation is being used to present the iconic Dunluce Links at Royal Portrush Golf Club to the world for The Open.

The UK’s Toro distributor, Reesink Turfcare, will provide additional backup Toro machinery and support throughout the week-long tournament in July and can confirm a new long-term agreement to continue working with Royal Portrush has recently been completed.

Toro maintains championship course for The Open

Toro maintains championship course for The Open

With over a million fans applying for tickets and an anticipated 278,000 spectators expected to attend according to The R&A, it’s shaping up to be the biggest Open in history (outside of St Andrews), and maintaining a cool, calm head throughout years of preparations is Course Manager Graeme Beatt.

“It felt like there was no time at all between the 2019 Open finishing and preparations for the 2025 tournament starting,” Graeme says. “With 40,000 more people coming and a significant increase in corporate hospitality, we, along with The R&A, have been focused on improving the spectator experience and it was agreed we’d enlarge all of our spectator areas, rebuild the range and reconstruct the front nine of the Valley course.

“The rest of the changes are subtle. We’ve adjusted the first and seventh greens and have two new Championship tees on the fourth and seventh – the fourth is now 25 yards longer and the seventh about 15 yards longer than in 2019.”

Preparations are now focused on maintaining the courses at their general tournament standard: “From season to season we’re busy with members and events so we maintain the courses at a tournament standard year-round with Toro,” Graeme explains.

A Toro customer for over 30 years, Royal Portrush, its team of 30 staff and an international support team of 18, will use the club’s complete fleet of Toro equipment including battery-powered ride-on greens mowers, fairway mowers and utility vehicles, plus a new state-of-the-art Toro Lynx Central Control System to achieve the ideal playing conditions.

In addition, the club welcomes for the first time four Toro Vista shuttles configured for four, six and eight passengers to aid personnel transportation around the site.

There are changes to the way the Toro machinery is being used for the Championship, the biggest, Graeme tells us, is that the electric ride-on mowers are being used for the greens instead of hand cutting as was the case in 2019.

“The precision and technology of the Greensmaster eTriFlex 3370 ride-on mower is such that the results are equal to a hand mower,” Graeme tell us. “This was an approach favoured by St Andrews and Royal Troon when they hosted The Open and eliminating the chance of an oil leak brings peace of mind.”

The irrigation system upgrade, which included replacing all sprinkler heads with Infinity and B Series across both courses, is currently accommodating an unseasonably dry spring says Graeme: “We’re having a really dry spell which would be absolutely perfect if it was the end of June, but as it’s springtime we’re having to employ the technology of the system.

“The individually controlled irrigation heads are perfect for giving precise control over watering ensuring only the exact amount needed is used and we can achieve our goals without wastage.”

Danny Campbell, General Manager at Royal Portrush, commented on the new agreement with Toro: “The Club has had a wonderful relationship with Toro for more than three decades and we’re delighted to extend it even further. Graeme’s team produce the best surfaces all year round and their dedication, along with the support of Toro, enable us to continually deliver our courses to the highest standard.”

Jon Cole, Divisional Business Manager at Reesink Turfcare, concludes: “Our relationship with Royal Portrush is 35 years strong and to be providing Graeme and the team with all the equipment and backup and support they need to make hosting their third Open a success is an honour.”

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