Ted Hopkins Agricultural and Horticultural Engineers has won a £1m-plus contract to supply the equipment to prepare The Celtic Manor Resort’s course for when golf’s greatest team event comes to Newport in 2010.
The Wentloog-based business is playing a vital role in the £12m redevelopment of the Wentwood Hills course by providing a fleet of mowers to help get the layout into tip-top condition for the tournament. As South Wales’s only supplier of equipment made by American manufacturer Toro, Ted Hopkins was the natural choice for Celtic Manor.
“We have worked with the company for 10 years and the relationship has been very successful,” said the Resort’s director of golf and courses management, Jim McKenzie. “Over the past decade, we have built up our fleet through a three-phase equipment plan that has made us one of the largest Toro users in Europe. This is a unique new agreement to provide us with machinery on a rolling replacement programme until 2006, when the contract will be reviewed for the next five years.”
The new machinery includes Toro’s Flex 21 greensmowers, 72in Reelmaster rough mowers, Workman utility vehicles and Reelmaster 3100-D mowers.
“We are a European Tour venue and mowers like the Flex 21 deliver the precision we need,” said Jim McKenzie. “Top players today demand a very tight, close cut and the Flex cuts closer than anything else on the market.”
The Wentwood Hills redevelopment programme includes creating seven new holes in the Usk Valley and redesigning two further holes to meet the specific requirements of a Ryder Cup.
Since Ted Hopkins established his business in 1987, it has grown to comprise four companies with a total turnover in excess of £4m. The company, which employs 18 people based at its 10-acre site, located between Cardiff and Newport, has a franchise to sell and lease Massey Ferguson, Toro and Kawasaki groundcare vehicles and equipment.
Among its clients are the Welsh Rugby Union for the Millennium Stadium pitch and more than 80 golf clubs throughout Wales.
Ted Hopkins www.tractor-market.co.uk/members/34/34777.htm