Tag Archive for: Super

Wiedenmann Super 500 to super charge rough management

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Wiedenmann Super 500 to super charge rough management: Panmure Golf Club in Carnoustie, Angus, has added a Wiedenmann Super 500 sweeper collector to its fleet, principally for rough management duties.

“Our last machine had over 30 years’ service; but as conditions needed to be dry for it to collect, it limited us to cutting rough in September. Changing the dynamics of the golf course at that stage of the season, didn’t suit, so we knew it was time for a replacement,” explained Head Greenkeeper, Gary Nicoll.

Wiedenmann Super 500 to super charge rough management

Wiedenmann Super 500 to super charge rough management

With the arrival of the Wiedenmann Super 500 in mid-January, Gary says it has brought renewed vigour to their programme.

“Our programme was in a good place, but a few areas had become tricky and unmanageable. I always knew the new machine would turbo-charge efforts. We can work in different conditions, even when it is damp or if there’s frost. It just powers through. When you start it up, it just sounds efficient and full of energy, literally, it is tearing through everything, cutting and collecting in one pass. We cut against the way the grass is lined up, so it’s a more aggressive cut. We are also reaching into areas previously off limits. We run it with our Wiedenmann Terra Rake. We’re about to spray sulphate iron as we have a bit too much moss. Our rake will take out rank grasses and we’ll  go in again with the flail and give it another tidy up. We’re just mastering how to judge the hopper capacity, but I couldn’t be more pleased with our choice.”

As well as a Wiedenmann Terra Rake and Super 500, the club has a Whisper Twister Blower and a Terra Spike GXi 8 HD deep aerator.

Installation and induction training was by Wiedenmann UK’s lead demonstrator, Andy Kerr and Mike Lindsay, Area Sales Manager, from local dealer. Fairways GM, at Kinross.

The Carnoustie site has 14 acres of managed grassland. The historic course combines the best elements of links and heathland, with tight fairways, challenging carries, undulating greens and sandhills forged by nature.

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‘Top notch’ says super at Echo Valley

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‘Top notch’ says super at Echo Valley: The Echo Valley Country Club has just completed installing the Capillary Bunkers liner on all of its 27 holes, and head superintendent Ryan Lux says he is delighted with the results.

Echo Valley was founded in the 1960s, and its initial eighteen holes were designed by architect Larry Packard. More recently, North Carolina-based architect Rick Robbins added the Ridge nine. But, according to Lux, the time had come to pay some attention to the course’s bunkers.

‘Top notch’ says super at Echo Valley

‘Top notch’ says super at Echo Valley

“Before we started this project, we had 76 bunkers on the property and maybe five per cent of them drained properly,” says. “It wasn’t the actual drainage tile – that was working fine – but layers of sand and silt were preventing the water getting into the drains in the first place. I had done some digging in our older bunkers, and the layering of silt, contamination and other stuff was obvious. Our labour costs were excrutiatingly high and it would take eight or nine guys three days to get the course back into condition after a significant weather event.”

Lux and the club management concluded that a bunker renovation, and the installation of a modern liner system, was needed, and after a review of the market, selected the Capillary Bunkers liner technology. “We figured our best bet was to do something that would last, and we really liked the ten year warranty that Capillary Bunkers offers – it gave us a lot of confidence in the technology,” he says. “Through talking with other people, we found that there were very few problems that people had had with it. We wanted it to be top-notch. We were going with the best sand we could find and we didn’t want contamination.”

The first nine holes, the Vale, was completed in October 2021. The second nine, the newer Ridge, started construction late this April and was done by mid-July. On the final nine, the Creek, Lux and his team decided to rebuild the bunkers completely; the work began in July and finished in October.

“Since doing the work, the improvement is huge, and obvious,” he says. “Before, the washing we were getting was just terrible. The worst weather we have had since has been three inches of rain in about nineteen house, and what I have seen is that we’re not repairing bunkers any more. Now, one guy can go out and it’s a half hour job to fix the bunkers. The liner system will pay itself over the life of the ten year guarantee, easily.”

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Downfield GC choses Super 500

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Downfield GC choses Super 500: The resourcefulness and positivity of Course Manager, John Watson, and his team of six, at the parkland course of Downfield GC, Dundee, saw them through a tough ‘stop-start’ winter.

“You can only worry about what you can control,” said John Watson, brushing aside that a relentless combination of ice and 12 weeks’ snow cover, played havoc with well laid plans for the first quarter of the year.

Downfield GC choses Super 500

Downfield GC choses Super 500

Fortunately, John Watson’s purchase of two machines from local dealer, Fairways GM at Kinross, last November, helped him make the best of any weather windows.

The first was a Wiedenmann Super 500, 3-in-1 high dump, sweeper collector, which is famed for being able to keep working in frosty conditions.

“It’s been permanently attached to a hydrostatic tractor; it works a treat on that, so smooth. Primarily, it was for leaves and then of course, rough management. It picked huge amounts of leaves right away, and then a few storms meant we virtually had to start again. Leaves are vacuum packed nice and tightly. We high dump them into one of our 5 tonne cage sided trailers. We’ve taken photos of what it does and quite honestly, it’s so good, people think we’ve used Photoshop,” continued John.

The second machine is the Maredo MT200 Flex Verticutter, supplied via GroundPro to Fairways GM and indeed, to all Wiedenmann UK dealers.

The Maredo has three mechanically driven heads which follow contours individually and can give either a light groom or verticut, or a deep scarify, down to  a maximum 25 mm, particularly appropriate to greens, tees and aprons.

“I chose the Maredo for its manoeuvrability. It’s on a three point linkage behind the tractor so when it comes to doing tees or greens, it’s just a case of pulling up the lift lever. They are light, quick and easy to position in the tightest of spots. What I like is they drop the organic matter and debris behind the machine rather than up in the air and there is no running it over.  I was also conscious if you hit a stone, it wasn’t airborne, so for me it surpassed the H&S requirements and it worked better for us than others demonstrated. Just in the last few weeks have we been out scarifying the practice area ridding it of moss and organic matter down to about 8 mm. It’s neat and thorough.”

John’s ethos is to work smartly and productively, maximising output with all of his team involved.

“We have three tractors and they all work in tandem when we cut and collect the rough, we have one tractor running back and forward with the trailers, taking them to be emptied and to drop off points around the course, one blowing and the other working the Super 500 constantly with no wasted journeys back and forward to empty.  Same principles with the Maredos; when we are scarifying, we use our blower to row up the debris, the Super 500 to collect and trailers positioned for high dumping. None of this is rocket science but organise well and you make the most of a good day,” continued John Watson.

Mike Lindsay, Fairways GM’s Area Manager said: “The Super 500 and Maredos will work well together.  John had been keen to add them to his machinery feet for some time and now they are doing exactly what he’d planned.”

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