Redditch Golf Club in Worcestershire has taken delivery of 10 new Toro machines in a move that has resulted in great member feedback and significant reduction in maintenance costs.
With modern greens that European Tour player John Bickerton describes as “matching the standard we see on tour week in week out”, the presentation of the course is headed up by Karl Williams, who took over as course manager last October.
“I have long favoured Toro equipment but initially thought we would not be able to afford the exact line up of machines I wanted,” says Karl.
“But we worked with Toro and our local dealers Redtech Machinery and came up with a package that saw new equipment being delivered in March and April.”
The new Toro kit list has seen the club double up on its main mowers, with the arrival of two TriFlex 3420 triples ride-on greens mowers, a pair of Greensmaster GR1000 pedestrian models and a couple of Reelmaster RM5610 for the fairways.
Karl says this pairing up of machinery is related to timeliness. Timely mowing frees up the six-strong greens team to do other vital maintenance work, which includes rolling the greens with a new Toro GreensPro 1240.
“Members have said the fairways are in good shape and I think much of this is down to the new mowers. The Toro Reelmasters leave a lovely finish. We also have a new Reelmaster 3100D, specifying the SideWinder option to allow offset mowing. It also leaves a lovely finish and, like the other Toro kit, is really operator friendly.”
As well as noting ease of use and great feedback from members, Karl notes significant cost benefits: “Looking back, our old machinery maintenance costs were going through the roof. The switch to new equipment is proving more cost effective even before we take its performance into account.”
Although Karl and the team do cylinder grinding in-house, maintenance is generally kept to routine daily checks and set-up with all servicing of the new equipment being left to Redtech.
This work is scheduled to allow all the greens team to be out working on the course and not spent working on machinery repairs.
“I send Graham Hall at Redtech an email on a Friday and list the hours on machines and he works out what needs a service and he lets me know which day the next week he will visit,” he adds.
Toro turf products are distributed throughout mainland UK by Lely Turfcare, 1 Station Road, St Neots PE19 1QH. Call 01480 226800, email turfcare.uk@lely.com or visit www.lelyturfcare.co.uk / www.toro.com for further details. And in Ireland by Lely Ireland Limited, Kilboggin, Nurney, Co. Kildare. Call 00 353 (0)45 526170 or email turfcaresales.ie@lely.com.
Redditch Golf Club www.redditchgolfclub.com
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