Course manager Geoff Smith welcomes what he also describes as a ‘new dawn’ at the club, with recent developments including a third successive John Deere course maintenance equipment fleet deal with local dealer P Tuckwell Ltd at Ardleigh, near Colchester. This is based on a John Deere Financial operating lease with PowerGard Protection Plus warranty and maintenance cover for the duration of the lease, based on simple monthly payments.

This deal has been complemented by the arrival of a new teaching professional and a new golf club fitting centre installed by Golf Principles of Basingstoke, as well as plans for a redesign of the clubhouse plus an overhaul of the practice facilities and driving range. A new full wall-to-wall Perrot state of the art irrigation system, the first one of its kind in the UK, is also being installed by contractors M J Abbott this winter.

“It’s a really exciting time for the club,” says Geoff Smith. “With this new investment, the first for several years, we are aiming to bring the course back to Open Qualifier standards and keep ahead of the competition. The only real asset we have is the golf course, so it needs to be looked after.

“Members can already see what we’ve achieved, and our board members believe the course is the best it’s ever looked. A neighbouring club’s greens chairman even said that he’d heard Abridge is in absolutely magnificent condition.”

With this third package deal, 100 per cent of the equipment has been leased compared to just 40 per cent with the club’s first agreement. “The terms of the deal and the service package have improved each time, and with this latest investment we know exactly where we are budget wise for the next five years, with no hidden costs,” says Geoff.

The package covers 26 John Deere machines, including PrecisionCut and TerrainCut walk-behind and ride-on mowers for the greens, tees, approaches and rough, compact tractors and a front loader, Gator utility vehicles, an amenity turf sprayer and a bunker rake, plus ancillary equipment.

“We looked at all the main brands and had machines on demonstration – all of my staff get to try them and report back on their likes and dislikes,” says Geoff. “Our mechanic Paul Aylett, deputy course manager Ben Scrivener and I then evaluate the staff’s findings and look at price options and back-up issues.

“For us it all comes back to the dealer and the service we’ve historically had and continue to get from Tuckwell and sales manager Neil Peachey. All the advice, help and extra support really count – it’s a good relationship, and it works well for both sides. Our machines do a lot of work and if Paul cannot solve things, I need to know that someone from the supplier can be with us within 24 hours.”

Geoff Smith also says he’s very impressed with the new John Deere 9009A rough mower, which provides much better definition around the course. “When it was first demonstrated I didn’t want it, I thought it was too big, but Neil said he’d take it back if I really didn’t like it – and it stayed!

“I like the new 220SL walk-behind greens mowers too – we hand cut five out of seven days in high season, using lights and front brushes, and they do a very good job. The new A Model mowers with the TechControl display on the CommandArm are great as well, allowing every machine to achieve the same consistent finish across the course.”

Well what a change in the weather! When I left to go on holiday we were in very dry, hot sunny conditions and I have returned to wet, windy cool conditions! The positive is this rain will set us up nicely for the summer if it returns?

The greens are quite lush and soft owing to the wet conditions and all areas are starting to grow like spring again. When the warmer drier weather returns we will be cutting crazy!

Just a couple of updates on Course work. 9th Bunkers, we had to stop half way through renovating them owing to the manpower required during the very hot spell to keep the water going. It would also have been a little foolish to turf during that period.  Once many of my staff have had their well earned holidays we will get back to finishing them off.

We have started working on a temporary green at the 3rd hole. This is in preparation for when we install some drainage in the 3rd green on the 17th August. We will be using the same drainage system that we used on the 10th Green 2 years ago. If you remember the green was out of play for 2-3 weeks and then fully restored soon after. Hopefully things will go as smoothly as the 10th green did. I appreciate your understanding while we do this improvement works.

Irrigation and reservoir plans are coming along nicely and I hope to be able to update you soon with more details.

Finally , as I said earlier many of my staff are taking holidays the next few weeks, especially next week so please understand if not all jobs are getting done as quick as they should be.

Enjoy your Golf, enjoy your Course.

Regards,

Geoff

I hope you are all still playing golf in between the showers. These days of continuous showers seems to have been a theme for the last couple of months. Our recent trends of warm, dry September’s and October’s seem to have gone this year. It certainly helps with keeping everything growing and looking great but does cause issues with getting ‘dry cuts’ in and course renovations.

To date, renovations have gone really well. The greens as you know were only renovated 3 weeks ago and arfe almost fully recovered. Last week we managed to core and topdress all the approaches and half the tees and have finished the tees off yesterday. So despite the rain we are well ahead!

The fairways will be hollow cored and or scarified w/c 2nd October and then some overseeding where necessary.

The 9th bunkers are being finished this week ready for turfing,  and we intend to start on re-instating the 10th bunker, again ready for turfing. We are also topping up bunkers with sand over the next two weeks.  People maybe wondering what the red lines are on some of the greens?  We have a few areas on the greens that after a busy summer need some overseeding. To give these areas a good chance to establish we are letting these areas ‘grow up’ to the height of the collars. Then in the spring we will re-establish the areas back to Greens height.

We are also getting ready to start our Autumn / Winter programme of Tree, bunker, Tee rebuilding and pathway work. I will give you more details of these proposed works in the next few weeks.

As you all probably know I raise money for charity every year. This year my chosen charities are MIND and Dementia UK and I still have approx. 12 places left on my Annual Charity Golf Day next Tuesday afternoon 12.00 sandwiches, 1pm shotgun start followed by two Course Dinner, Prizes and Raffle. If any of you would like to play or even better can enter a fourball that would be very much appreciated. Please let me know either via my mobile or the Office.

That’s it for this week. Enjoy your Golf

Geoff
Course Manager