Tag Archive for: wait

Good things come to those who wait…

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Good things come to those who wait…: Scott MacCallum catches up with the most patient man in greenkeeping – Paul Larsen, who has had to wait an additional 12 months to prepare an Open Championship course.

The Open Championship at Royal St George’s Golf Club is going to be a wonderful event.

Good things come to those who wait…

Good things come to those who wait…

The course, one of the best on the Open rota, will be in immaculate condition, the weather will be superb and the golf will be exciting, irrespective of how many spectators are there to create the galleries.

How can I be so sure? Well, I’m merely following the old adage “Good things come to those who wait”, and oh how the club, and, in particular, Head Greenkeeper Paul Larsen and his team have had to wait.

At the beginning of last year everything was on track for The Open, in July. The long and medium term planning had gone well and Paul and his team were hoping for a good spell of weather in the months ahead so that the course would be fast and running, just how the R&A like it.

And then…

The decision was taken to postpone the Championship for a year on April 6, and immediately the date, which had been penned into the diary since 2017, when Royal St George’s hosting was announced, disappeared over the horizon.

“To be honest when the news about the postponement came through my mind wasn’t really on The Open. It was on the virus,” recalled Paul.

“I only had five people in, including myself, everyone else was on furlough, and we were just doing the bare essentials on the course to keep it going, as we were instructed to do. We also had the heatwave at the same time so we were hand watering everywhere and not really cutting.

“To be fair the fescue was thriving but The Open was suddenly in the background,” said Paul, who admitted that he was one of the first to take the virus seriously.

“Without going OTT we were doing all the cleaning of hands and equipment, which eventually was official advice, from the very beginning.”

With the US Open being moved from June to September, The Masters moving to November and some European Tour events being played before the original Open date, there were thoughts that a slightly shorter delay may be possible but Paul was pleased that the ultimate outcome was the end result.

“They have considered holding it later in the year but had they moved it to September there would have been light issues and it would have had to have been a reduced field, but around that time we were going into quite a severe lockdown.

“I personally think they made the right decision. There was no messing about, and everyone’s health came first,” said Paul.

The postponement was announcement before any of the huge stands or marquees had been erected but most of the underground infrastructure, TV cabling etc, was in place.

“In a way it has meant that they had a head start for this year,” reasoned Paul.

The club took the greenkeeping staff off furlough when it was deemed safe to do so and they took the opportunity to carry out work that was possible with the course devoid of golfers.

“It was great by the club that they took everyone off furlough and it meant we could get a lot of work done. We’ve done a lot of path reshaping which would have been difficult with golfers on the course and we’ve cleaned out a sand dune behind the 4th green, an area which might be in play.”

Ironically, the original Open week was an exceptionally busy one at Royal St George’s.

“We held an Open tournament for the members which was open to everyone and people could play off the Championship tees if they wanted to. We were getting 120 people playing each day and the weather was great and the course looked and played really well.

“So it would have been great for The Open if it was played.”

In fact, the week before history was made with the first ever professional ladies’ event held over the old links. The Justin Rose Series, a wonderful initiative to give ladies playing opportunities in these strange times, was played with a strong field of professional lady golfers. Gemma Dryburgh, of Scotland, was the first to have a Royal St George’s victory on her record, with a one under par round of 69.

With everything planned for, and geared up for, a particular week in the diary, having that date move by 12 months could have been deflating for Paul and his team. But not so.

“Keeping motivated, a problem?

Good things come to those who wait…

Good things come to those who wait…

Good question but ‘No’, in a word. The story goes back to when we lost a lot of grass in the drought of 2018. We hadn’t really recovered from that so when we were moved back a year we had great fairways and great playing surfaces in general, but our semi rough was quite hard to get back and contained quite a bit of soft broom.

“So the motivation has been to get that up to scratch . The guys have been hand-dressing the semi. I didn’t want top dressers over it, so we’ve done it in the old-fashioned manner.

The motivation was always there, but the extra 12 months has given us extra motivation to get it better.”

It actually made the very next question a little redundant, but being a stubborn so-and-so, I asked it anyway.

“Was there a date in the calendar that you went back into Championship mode?”

Not too bad eh? But an obvious answer…

But I did get a little more.

“At the end of the day, without the team I’ve got here the results wouldn’t be possible. They’ve been out hand shoveling top dressing day after day, over and over.

They’ve got on with it. It’s not just the hours they’ve put in, it’s the physical energy required to do it.

“I’ve worked on many golf courses and a lot of people think that you just sit on machines in the summer and that it’s easy. We do a lot of hand cutting here and it is physically demanding. They are very fi t from it and they have been absolutely brilliant for me,” said Paul.

Like all Head men Paul is rarely happy with the weather which is dished up to him – a Greenkeeper’s Rain Dance should be up there with the likes of the Argentine Tango and Charleston as a Strictly standard – and sure enough spring didn’t cut the mustard.

“We wanted a good spring, but we didn’t get it. However, this month (May) we’ve had 68mil so that’s rejuvenated everything. Had we had gone from a dry spring to a dry hot summer we’d have got no germination and all our work would have been done and we’d have had no dividend from it. But with all this rain you can see it coming up.”

Elsewhere the delay has meant that the bunkers will be a year older than they would have been.

“We didn’t build any the year before as we didn’t want them to look brand new but with quite a hard winter with a lot of snow we are finding cracks in some of them so we will be finding a way of freshening them up. I’ve got a few techniques to get them right, but they are at the end of their five year cycle.”

For the week itself Paul has had to tweak his original plan and call on his neighbouring golf clubs for help.

Good things come to those who wait…

Good things come to those who wait…

“It will be an unusual Open because normal the team and volunteers stay on site in Bunkabins for the 10 days before and during the Championship. Now everyone has to leave the site and go home at the end of each day and I have had to get 25 local volunteers to help. Normally we have guys for the other Open rota courses but that’s not happening either.”

So 25 local greenkeepers will have the opportunity of experiencing an Open.

“We’ve got to plan what each one will be doing, and we are hoping that they will come for a day’s training beforehand.

There will always be one of my guys with them. It’s going to be interesting. I’ll let you know how it goes after The Open.”

Thinking back to the last Royal St George’s Open – Darren Clarke’s popular win in 2011 – Paul, Deputy at the time had a job he is very pleased to be relinquishing.

“I was painting the holes and I couldn’t relax until the final hole was cut and white painted. I’m glad I’m not doing it this time!”

Despite having been the greenkeeper who has had to show more patience than any other in modern times for his Open to arrive, Paul hasn’t let his mind wander to the week itself.

“I don’t live for the future. I always have a plan, but I don’t particularly think about how I’m going to be feeling. I just accept it on the day. It is what it is, otherwise you are just worrying about what it is going to be like.”

But I really don’t think Paul and his team should be worrying. As I say “Good things come to those who wait”

Good things come to those who wait

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Good things come to those who wait: It was a deal a couple of years in the making for Hainault Golf Club in Chigwell, Essex, as it changed machinery brands and settled on a large fleet with Toro and Reesink, and it was worth the wait according to course manager Paul Selbie.

Choosing a new machinery brand and partnering with a new distributor are two big decisions, requiring research and demonstrations, and it can take time to be sure it’s the right move for the future of the club. But actually, Paul says, the decision to commit to Toro and Reesink Turfcare was a straight-forward one, made with no hesitation: “This was my first machinery fleet deal at Hainault. I appreciate it’s a big thing to step away from what the club and team have known and relied on for a long time, but with the previous machines well-overdue an upgrade, it was the right time to present all the options to the team.

Good things come to those who wait

Good things come to those who wait

“Everyone was involved and while I had used Toro previously, no one else had,” Paul continues.” The feedback was really interesting from the demos and it brought everything to the table, not just the performance of the machines, but the bigger picture. For example, was Reesink the right distributor, was Richard Freeman the right contact and would the support and back-up be there?

“The Reesink team was really involved in demoing the Toro machines with us and you could clearly see this was important to them. Richard made it feel like the beginning of a long-term relationship, it certainly wasn’t just a deal to him.”

Paul says the machines ability to cope with the two courses which are both hilly, parkland and tree-lined, led the team to unanimously conclude that Toro suited the lay of the land and performed very well. And while there could have been better machines out there for certain aspects of course maintenance, what couldn’t be bettered was the whole package and the deal was done in 2018.

So why the delay in the process? Well, that comes down to factors out of Paul’s control such as renegotiating the lease of the land, Paul says: “We had to press pause and while it was frustrating, it was worth the wait to receive them in 2020 of all years. We’ve had the time to get to know the machines, their capabilities and can confirm that Toro really does exceed in terms of efficiency. That counted and meant that despite a reduced work force the course was in excellent shape when we opened back up again after lockdown.”

Included in the order are two Toro Greensmaster TriFlex 3400 mowers, two Greensmaster 3250-D mowers, two Reelmaster 5610-D mowers, a Groundsmaster 3500-D mower, the Groundsmaster 1200 towed rotary mower, a Workman GTX utility vehicle and a GreensPro 1260 greens roller.

Paul says: “It is a fleet predominantly focused on frontline machines, but with further investment plans in place for the next couple of years, that won’t be the case for long. Business is good, the course is presenting really well and we’re planning on putting Toro through its paces with some improvement projects over the winter months too so we’re in a positive place with some exciting things to look forward to.”

To talk to someone about the finance options available and how the Toro range would suit your course, call 01480 226800.

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Dumbarnie: It’s worth the wait

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Dumbarnie: It’s worth the wait: Scott MacCallum celebrates the opening – at last – of a fine addition to the long list of magnificent Scottish golf courses, uncovering American connections along the way…

There is a beach in Fife which is only really known by locals. Shell Bay, on the East Neuk of the Kingdom, doesn’t have the iconic status of the West Sands at St Andrews, but it does have all you would ever want from a beach.

Dumbarnie: It’s worth the wait

Dumbarnie: It’s worth the wait

I know this because I was brought up not 15 miles away and spent the occasional sunny Sunday afternoon enjoying the delights of the beach.

But just between Shell Bay and the village of Lower Largo is a stretch of land, at one time unassuming fields occupied by cattle and sheep, which has just been turned into Scotland’s newest and most talked about golf course – a wonderful addition to the unbeatable stable of courses the Home of Golf has to offer.

Dumbarnie Links opened to the public in May and there can be noone prouder than Grahame Taylor, who has been with the project from the turning of the first sod. He was appointed Course Manager, initially being in charge of the “Seed in the Ground” contract, before taking on the day-to-day maintenance.

A born and bred Fifer, Grahame already had a stellar CV, containing the names Leven Links, Polaris WorldSpain, Gleneagles and The Old Course St Andrews. Then came along the amazing opportunity to be involved in a fantastic new project that could not be overlooked at Dumbarnie Links.

It was while at Leven that the jungle drums about a new course near Shell Bay started to beat a little louder, reaffirming a plan which had its origins back in the 1920s, and which had it come to fruition would have changed the landscape of Scotland’s hospitality and golfing sector.

The story goes that the Directors of Caledonian Railways were travelling through Scotland looking to identify a location for a fabulous new hotel they hoped to add to their property portfolio. They came up with two places, Dumbarnie and Gleneagles. It was the Perthshire site that was chosen and the iconic Gleneagles Hotel, with its wonderful Scottish Open, Ryder and Solheim Cup courses, was the result.

It may have taken a full century to do so but Dumbarnie is now fulfilling that potential.

Dumbarnie: It’s worth the wait

Dumbarnie: It’s worth the wait

“I first learned that a golf course was being planned over 10 years ago when I heard that the land had potential for golf,” explained Grahame, as we spoke in his superb new maintenance facility, full of brand new John Deere kit, supplied by Double A, based not far away in Cupar.

What had put the spark back in the plan was down to an old boss of mine. Malcolm Campbell, a former Editor of Golf Monthly magazine and a highly respected golf writer, lives close by and had, like Caledonian Railways, known for some time of the golfing potential of the land. Close friends with former Ryder Cup player, Clive Clark, now golf course architect, based in the United States, Malcolm tipped Clive off about the site, and he became equally enamoured.

A consortium was put together and the land, part of the 5,000 acre Balcarres Estate, was purchased from Lord Balniel. Planning for the new course was approved in 2017.

Remarkably, the construction and overall management was and is conducted by American companies – Nebraska-based Landscapes Unlimited constructed the course and it is operated by OB Sports Golf Management, which is based in Scottsdale, Arizona. It was designed by Clive Clark who was on site for the construction phase and had Paul Kimber also on site throughout as Project Manager.

“I think they wanted someone with a lot of Links golf experience and ideally a local guy to manage the course and I’d been at Leven for 10 years, had Open and Ryder Cup experience and was also very experienced in irrigation,” explained Grahame.

His boss is Luke Beardmore, Senior Vice President of Agronomy, Construction and Landscape with OB Sports Golf Management.

“Luke interviewed me on site, and we have built a great working relationship, even though he is 5,000 miles away. We speak every day, either by phone, Zoom or Facetime.

I feel really privileged to have such a great working relationship. Luke is an agronomist and has grown-in around 30 golf courses. OB Sports have been a fantastic support for me on site.”

Turning bland fields into a characterful golf course is no mean feat but in the case of Dumbarnie, in part due to the dry summer of 2018, it was constructed in a remarkable 12 weeks – the first sod was turned on June 1, 2018 with the final green seeded on October 8th.

“Shapers, four of them, were brought in from the States and the site was swarming with 30 tonne dumper trucks and dozers. They moved 600,000 cubic tones of dirt and in doing so created a dune-scape indistinguishable from the land which previously existed,” revealed Grahame.

Dumbarnie: It’s worth the wait

Dumbarnie: It’s worth the wait

With the construction moving at such a pace it would have been easy for Grahame to lose focus, however taking one day at a time and staying organised was key to a successful day.

“To be on site from day one was very important to see where everything from drainage to irrigation is going in the ground.

Working as one team with Clive and Paul was a good opportunity to put forward my views on any contours that would affect the maintenance of the course moving forward, Clive would sometimes ask me ‘Is it maintainable?’” said Grahame.

“If they perhaps needed a slight tweak they could be softened off a little. It was quite straightforward and the consultation worked well.”

The areas in which Grahame’s views were considered most valuable where in ensuring there were sufficient pin positions on greens and would fairway mowers cope with some of the undulations the shapers had created.

When it came to the seeding of the greens and surrounds Grahame and his team took it upon themselves to complete the job and were delighted with the results.

“It is important that you get it right the first time as you get one shot at it.” Barenbrug supplied the seed. The greens and surrounds were fescue – chewings and slender with a very small percentage of Charles bent.

“I asked for some bent as it gives us a little more scope as there would otherwise be a greater risk of balls oscillating in high winds. In terms of wear having a bit of bent in there gives you more options.”

Those winds were such that they did cause issues during the grow in, a problem caused by the fact that the dunes were brand new and initially didn’t have anything to bind them together.

“The dunes were all hydro seeded but had no irrigation, so you were left hoping that nature would provide some rain to germinate the seed before the winds arrive in the spring,” revealed Grahame, adding that the course had wall-to-wall Toro irrigation, which offers him excellent control.

Unfortunately some winds did prove to be an issue in the spring of 2019 and, despite miles of fences, and piles of pallets, acting as wind breaks, Grahame and the team would come in and discover entire fairways were buried in up to four inches of sand.

In his own words, “It was a like a war zone out there at times” sums up the scene after the winds had done their damage.

“The fescue was at a young stage and any amount of brushing the sand off was not ideal.”

This was the toughest spell during the grow-in phase for the agronomy team. “I have a fantastic team who I work alongside with who gave everything to the course during that difficult spell.”

“Take one day at a time and feel like you have won the battle when you head home. The next day is a new set of challenges to overcome. There is always a solution, you just have to find it.” His philosophy during the growin period was to be aggressive from the start in terms of agronomy.

“There is no point in pussy-footing around. You have to take control right from the beginning, or you will get beaten up. I always went with my gut instinct and stuck to that, if you are second guessing yourself you are not going to win the battle.”

The course itself is stunning. Designed to be an enjoyable round for most standards of golfer the length is a spread from 5,334 yards, off the front tees, to an eye-watering 7,620 yards from the Championship tips. That would even have Bryson DeChambeau reaching for a mid-iron occasionally and perhaps hints at longer term ambitions for the course.

One of the features of the course, which is already adding to the flora and fauna on the site, is the bunkers. Half of them are beautifully revetted, while the other half are described as natural. “The revetted bunkers, 72 of them, are actually Eco Bunker, with layers of astroturf. You’d never know and they have turned out magnificently and Richard Allen has told us that they will stand for 25 years.

“We keep the natural bunkers clear by hand weeding them,” explained Grahame, whose team has grown from 11 during the grow-in to 18 now, including South African Deputy Course Manager, Era van Zyl, who joined Grahame from the Castle Course, in St Andrews.

Dumbarnie: It’s worth the wait

Dumbarnie: It’s worth the wait

Covid-19 has had an impact on Dumbarnie, although the opening only slid by a fortnight from the original date of May 16.

“At that point we were still aiming to have the course ready and, while we knew it was struggle for some of our suppliers, we were working towards that date without easing off.

“The thing that sticks in my mind about lockdown was that we were on a hectic schedule to get the clubhouse finished and we thought it was achievable. There were 40 to 50 people working on the clubhouse pushing hard… and the next day everyone left. It was a very eerie feeling. All my guys had cut back on their hours and it was just Era and myself sometimes. I cannot thank Era enough for his dedication. It was a very strange feeling. We just did not know what was going to happen,” recalled Grahame.

“My main concern was the guys’ health. You have to look after your team. When we started to come back, I split them into smaller groups and they were doing essential maintenance and then going home for the day.”

Speaking in September with a temporary car park packed, a clubhouse, which has been designed to look like two converted barns due for completion within a few weeks, and rave reviews for the course, Grahame could not be more pleased.

“I’m incredibly proud. Our international bookings have understandably been cancelled but many have rescheduled, while we have been full with Scottish residents playing, many of them coming back two three or even four times.

“I am honoured to be Course Manager at Dumbarnie Links. It has been a joy to be involved here from the start and I haven’t looked back. I never planned out my career. If a chance comes along you just have to have the courage to take it.”

And take it he has. You can be sure that now that Shell Bay shares its space with a world class golf course it will no longer be just the guilty secret of the Fife locals.