TORO Student Greenkeeper of the year FINALISTS!!

  

                                             Graham Hastie (Deputy Course Manager)  

                         

                                                   Levi Pethick (First Assistant Greenkeeper)

I have great pleasure to inform you that BOTH Graham Hastie and Levi Pethick have made the National Final of the Student Greenkeeper of the Year Award. This is one of the most prestigious Awards in the greenkeeping industry, with former winners including the likes of Murray Long who went on to be Course Manager at Sunningdale, Euan Grant who was Course Manager at Turnberry and now the JCB club.  

Graham and Levi who were not only both nominated by Oaklands College out of the 120+ students they have on greenkeeping courses, they now make up two of the six finalists after coming through the regional interviews.

The final will begin on Monday 11 September at BIGGA HQ in York, where candidates will join an industry discussion group hosted by BIGGA Chairman Les Howkins.

The finalists of the awards will then undertake a variety of tasks, culminating in the awards presentation, which will take place on the afternoon of Tuesday 12 September.

The Toro Student Greenkeeper of the Year winner will receive an eight-week all expenses paid scholarship, including a six-week residential turf management study course at the University of Massachusetts, a trip to the Golf Industry Show and a visit to the Toro factory.

The runners-up of each award will also receive a training package for BTME 2018.

Everyone at Stoneham are very proud of Graham and Levi and what they have achieved and wish them all the luck in the world at the final.

For more information see press release below:

https://www.bigga.org.uk/about-us/news/finalists-re-year-awards/00954.html

Maintenance week plans August 2017

Maintenance Week

21^st August – 25^th August

Below is the information on works to be carried out during course maintenance week

Please give way to operators at all times

Greens and Aprons

Monday: Verti drain (deep tine) to 7 inches, Hollow core 4 inches and clear, top dress and brush (Front 9 Closed)

Tuesday: Verti drain (deep tine) to 7 inches, Hollow core 4 inches and clear, top dress and brush (Back 9 Closed)

Wednesday: Scarify greens, Fertilise, over-seed, Top dress and Brush

Hollow core Front 9 Aprons and clear (Possible Front 9 Closed)

Thursday: Top dress greens if required

Hollow core Back 9 Aprons (Possible Back 9 Closed)

Friday: Cut and Roll greens, Possible snagging day for bad weather.

Following the works the greens will be sandy and a little bumpy for a couple of weeks. We apologise for an inconvenience.

Please remember these works are essential for our greens to continue to improve!

·         Tees – Verti drain, Hollow tine to remove thatch and for soil exchange, top dressed, over seeded with     rye, bent and fescue mix and fertilised.

·         Fairways & Surrounds October 11^th/12th – It is intended to Hollow tine and collect then rake and  blow ALL fairways and surrounds. This is a huge project with piles of cores being left next to fairways  for collection once completed. Some disruption to play on the days will be necessary but this will be    kept to a minimum.

* All greens and Aprons works will be carried out in maintenance week   

All works are subject to weather conditions             

                           

Matt Plested

Course Manager

August 2017

The Man from Montana

I wanted to do a quick blog about our new Ball washer on the 1st tee. Some of you have noticed this and have made comment about how much you like it. 

This ball washer has travelled many miles to be with us. It was made by a Course Superintendent (Course Manager) from Briarwood in Montana USA. His name is Sean Sullivan. He's a fantastic guy, who has been Greenkeeping for years. Sean is not only a member of the American Greenkeepers association (GCSAA) 

but BIGGA the British one too.

Briarwood is a private members club in the Yellowstone Country Park and was voted the number 1 course in Montana. For your information Montana is called "The Treasure State" It is the 4th largest state, so that's pretty impressive in terms of rankings.

Sean not only loves his family, dog and wildlife (not surprising living around the beautiful Yellowstone Park) but he also loves the British golf courses and has worked at the several British Open's. 

He regularly attends BTME the Turf Managers conference in Harrogate... that's  some travelling! 

 

His other passion is making bespoke ball washers in his workshop, especially during the snow days. 

(He then adds a copy of the club logos to his pickup truck. Nice to know our logo is getting seen if in the states!)  

I met Sean a few years ago and have got to know him from BTME. This year when speaking to him about Stoneham and the history of the British Masters and having the Ryder Cup team here, he asked if he could make us a Bespoke ball washer. Once back at Stoneham I sent him a copy of our logo and he got to work straight away. 

Several Facebook messages of the stages of the ball washers followed until he finally completed it. 

The ball washer then travelled the 4,471 miles to Stoneham for us to put on the 1st tee. We were so inspired by Sean's ball washers that we are now sourcing new ball washers complete with logos for other holes. 

 Once in place I sent Sean a thank you message and picture and he replied that I need to get a Stoneham bag towel to hang on it. He said "Looks great, hope your members appreciate the effort to increase their brand, cheers". 

Sean, we certainly do appreciate your efforts. We have had so many positive comments about the ball washer. 

Thank you! 

 

 

"Ne'er cast a clout till May be out"

Hi All,

I haven't had much time to blog lately and it's definitely something I need to make more time for. At the moment I write all the blogs in the evenings at home but lately the kids have had their own ideas for my time! I guess that's what happens as they get older. 

I started a blog about three weeks ago and never got chance to finish and publish it but reading it back today I am glad I didn't. I was writing just after the maintenance week work and wanted to talk about how the GDD (growth rates) were showing we were on course to hit 180 GDD (our magic growth number) by the end of March and that we were flying as far as spring was concerned... 

Wow, that will teach me! As since then the wheels have literally fallen off of spring. 

At one point we were looking like 59 days ahead of last year (we knew 2016 spring was cold from the start) but those have been crawling back and we are now only 19 days ahead of last year. 

(GDD data from this year above: note the drop).

Interesting the last three years February to March has had better growth than March to April! 

Now I can hear you all thinking I have gone mad. The suns been out and the weather has been lovely! So what's he going on about? Well yes the day time temperatures have been good but for us the two big issues have been the night time temperatures and the lack of rainfall. 

The night temperatures are dropping so much that growth is not happening as the soils are still cold because of the night temperatures, which isn't a bad thing for us apart from its the weeks following Course Maintenance week and we want the greens to recover quickly.

As they say "Ne'er cast a clout till May be out" (Dr. Thomas Fuller 1732), this old English saying simply means 'never discard your [warm winter] clothing till May be out'  and how true this is at the moment. We are still getting frosts!

The second part of the issue lately is the lack of rainfall. Whatever happened to 'April showers'! 

The answer to that is May. Our data shows that May has been wetter than April the last few years but this is by far the driest April I have ever known with 5mm falling and so far three weeks without a single drop of rain. 

Adding to this, our Irrigation system has been drained down due to new irrigation sprinklers being installed to all the greens and aprons around the course has meant priming irrigation system up and draining down just to get some water on the greens to wash in top dressing & give it the moisture it requires and the problem with this?... 

Adding irrigation water on to greens cools the soil temperatures down so a vicious circle of greens requiring water, soil temperatures being low and then lowered by the water meaning less growth. For me watering is essential still as low growth and recovery won't last forever but dead through drought will. 

I normally say we a rocking growth wise by the middle of May or the FA cup final as I say too. Let's hope I am not wrong again as this cool dry April has been not been great for us. 

So what have we learnt from this? How do we improve? Well already looking at next years diary and we are going to book two dates in for the early Maintenance week. One being end of February and one in March. Now depending on the winter we are having will determine the week we will use but GDD graphs show that in the last four years February to March has been warmer causing a flush of growth before cooling for March to April. So if it's dry enough for us to get the equipment round I would like to go earlier if possible on the greens to get this recovery. 

What's been going on out on the course?

It's a busy time for us out on the course, seeding worn areas, adding the spring fertilisers, turfing worn areas, woodland management. 

 

All the greens sprinklers have been replaced with new ones. The big difference is that old sprinklers (19 years old) worked at 360 degrees and the new ones will work at 180 these also have the option that we can add what they call a 'tail' this is a rear nozzle allowing us to get certain areas where we want to add water. Our old sprinklers didn't give us this option meaning water was going onto pathways, heather, trees etc. In the long run this will save us water and allow us to have enough water to give all areas (greens, tees and aprons) a proper water and once the aprons sprinklers are replaced (before the summer) our uniformity of will be better. 

We are also giving the course a bit of spring clean. Some of the tidying jobs have included: 

Astro turfing the steps around the course. This is not just an anti slip measure but will improve manual handling as weeding will be reduced. 

Painting of the course furniture, sheds and signage is on going. It's amazing how much better things look with a lick of paint. 

The pathways are starting to get topped up in places and this is an entire blog in itself to explain the pathway issues. This also normally works when we require rain because previously every time I have ever put pathway materials down it tends to hammer down with rain and wash them away pretty soon after, so the running joke in Greenkeeping is if it gets to dry top your pathways up :-)

You may have noticed we are trialling hand mowing tees. I personally think these look great and give a better look to the holes. The down side is it takes more man hours but sometimes I think it's worth it. 

Just a quick one from me. Hope that has explained a few things to you and I will keep the blogs coming. Let's hope for a good May weather wise. 

Happy golfing 

Matt 

Educating Stoneham

Hi All,

No it's not a new TV series on Channel 4 but a play on the words of the famous Educating Yorkshire TV series if you didn't know. 

I wanted to do a blog about some of the stuff that's been going on, off the course. 

One of my big beliefs is staff training. This not only gives the team the knowledge to carry out their work to high professional standard and keeps us all updated on the latest methods or legislation. It also develops staff and gives them careers. Wouldn't it be great if in years to come our team now were all managing golf courses and they said we were trained at Stoneham!

So what kind of training have we been doing? 

Do we really need to train to be grass cutters who get in the way... Well yes is the answer :-) 

The modern greenkeeper needs to be a Scientist, Environmentalist, Agronomist, Arborist, Mechanic, Irrigation Engineer, Accountant, PR Officer, Manager and an Artist with the canvas being the golf course. 

So what have we been doing? 

Firstly, we have our first member of staff since I arrived pass his formal qualification. Congratulations to Steve Jones on getting his City And Guilds Level 2 Diploma in Greenkeeping. 

We still have four more members of staff involved in college at present with two more just about to start. 

Graham Hastie and Levi Pethick are nearing the end of their two year course, while Mike Ray and Matthew Moules have just enrolled on their apprenticeships. Rob Patrick and Paul Martin are next up in the coming months as they look to start their level 3 qualification. 

We just recently received some great news that Graham and Levi had both been nominated for the Student Greenkeeper of the year Award. This is one of the highest awards in our industry. My previous deputy won this in 2014 and so did a young Murray Long. The winner gets the chance to go and study at the Winter Turf School in the USA. First they both must get through the gruelling interviews to get to the national final. A massive congratulations goes out to them. 

Again this year we had eight members of the team attend BTME (BIGGA Turf Management Exhibition) which is the national conference for Greenkeeping in Harrogate with thousands of greenkeepers attending every year. 

Talks on soil biology, management, chemical usage, heathland, woodland management and a talk from all the Course Managers from the Ryder Cup course past & future plus many more were attended. 

I was lucky enough to be asked to Present again this year meaning we all returned inspired for the year ahead with better knowledge.

On the final night myself, Graham and Murray Long attended the prestigious Golf Environmental Awards after we made the national final. Unfortunately we didn't win our category as this went to Frilford Heath who have been doing this for 25 years but the night was very emotional as people shared their passion for the environment and they are making this better through golf. A lot of people don't realise what goes on at many golf clubs and how these spaces are fantastic havens for wildlife. 

In February we attended (half the team to one day, half the team the second day) two more Section conferences. These were held in London at Oaklands College (where the team college is based) and the South Coast section which was held at Salisbury and South Wilts GC. Both were very well attended with 180 and 80 greenkeepers respectively. 

The seminars covered Soil science and Sustainability, the future of Golf, improving irrigation systems plus talks from The Bucks golf club on there renovation of the site and the Grove holding the British Masters. 

I was also honoured to be asked to talk at these events following the one I done back in December for the Sussex Greenkeepers which had 50 attend. My subject was obviously 'Stoneham the story so far' which basically covered all the works we have been doing here at Stoneham, from working the surfaces, to building welfare blocks right up to the bunker project. 

We had some excellent feed back and doing all three talks has really helped to raise the profile in our industry. 

Back at Stoneham we were also getting more training in during wet and cold winter month of February. 

This included Health and Safety training from John Ross. 

The subjects included fire warden training, Manual Handling and Health and safety in each department of the club. 

At the end of February we had our Toro training. This included Sprayer training for the guys who don't use our new sprayer and operator training for all the other Toro equipment. The guys have been users of the equipment for a long time but we have no evidence of training so a quick refresher course and certificate help us to prove competence. 

Lastly, in our winter of training. 

The FTMI (Future Turf Managers Initiative). This is a three day event set up by BIGGA and held in Ipswich at the Ransomes Jacobsen factory (Machinery manufacturer). 

FTMI gets 20 of the up and coming Greenkeepers in our industry every year and gives them management training to help them move up the ladder and secure the Course Managers job. 

The talks include becoming a leader, budgeting, crucial conversations, interview techniques, a factory tour and much more. They also have four Course Managers from across the U.K. as 'Mentors'. 

I have been fortunate to be asked to be a Mentor for the last five years since it started along with some excellent guys in the industry including Course Managers from Loch Lomond, Gleneagles, G West, RAC, Royal Cinque Ports. 

James Bledge Course Manager from RCP was one of the new mentors this having come full circle as he was one of our Students in the class 2013. This was really pleasing to see. 

I enjoyed being part of this process again I find it very rewarding and I learn a lot from the guest speakers, the students and the other mentors. 

All the staff are collecting CPD points (Continuing Professional Development) with BIGGA as a way of showing their development. There aim is to go through Active, Approved to Milestone statuses in a three year cycle. I just want to say well done to the team on this subject and keep it going! 

I felt it was important to write this blog to document all that's going on behind the scenes and because I am a strong believer in education. Remember the next time you see a Greenkeeper there is more to it other than grass cutting! 

Matt