Rochford Hundred Golf Club in Essex celebrates its 125th anniversary in 2018, and boasts a Grade One listed building dating back to the late 15th century as its clubhouse. The imposing Rochford Hall was the principal hall in the ‘Hundred’ of Rochford (the term dating back to Saxon times), which is listed in the Domesday Book as being the largest in the county.
This historic setting has much more recently seen the arrival of a new John Deere machinery fleet supplied by golf division sales manager Neil Peachey of local dealer P Tuckwell Ltd at Ardleigh, near Colchester.
This includes three 2500E hybrid electric greens & tees mowers; a 7700A PrecisionCut fairway mower; a 7400A TerrainCut rotary trim & surrounds mower; 9009A and 1570 TerrainCut rotary rough mowers; a 3038R compact tractor; a TE 4×2 electric Gator utility vehicle; two Pro Gator utility vehicles plus an HD300 sprayer with covered boom; and an Aercore 800 pedestrian aerator.
In a first for the club, most of the new machines have been acquired using a John Deere Financial operating lease including PowerGard Protection Plus warranty and maintenance cover. Course manager Dave Rand describes this as the ideal solution to help fix costs and enable the purchase of advanced technology equipment with a good resale value at the end of the term.
“We were falling behind on the latest technology, and also had a couple of years when we had to buy more machines than we’d budgeted for in order to keep up, which was proving more expensive than it needed to be,” Dave Rand explains. “With this new leasing deal, we’ve been able to bring in more kit compared with paying for individual machines in a year by year purchase programme, and the annual expenditure is actually less.
“We’ve now got everything covered in one simple monthly payment plan, plus the machines have extended warranty for the length of the deal so there will be no unforeseen costs or additional bills. With the key annual maintenance work included, it takes downtime out of the equation, raises standards and helps us to be more productive and efficient.
“In turn that means more golf can be played, which provides more income for the club. The members also pay their fees monthly now, so it’s a much more financially viable solution all round.
“We bought the new 9009A mower to do a better job on the rough, and this works on the large grass areas alongside the 1570 front rotary, which does the more intricate work around the trees and other landscape features,” Dave adds.
“These two machines now get the job done more quickly and have made a great improvement – the rough looks much better now. The electric Gator is also great for getting around the course quietly without disturbing golfers, and I really like the new A Model mower technology with the TechControl display, which helps to deliver a more consistent, quality finish around the course.”
John Deere Limited www.JohnDeere.co.uk
Rochford Hundred Golf Club http://www.rochfordhundredgolfclub.co.uk