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100 years of Toro golf
DLF Seeds at Goodwood The Goodwood Estate relies on mixtures from across the DLF Seeds portfolio to deliver results site-wide. With a remit including two 18-hole golf courses, a cricket ground, gardens and farmland, a grass airfield, and a motor circuit, General Manager of Sports Turf & Grounds, Phil Helmn, is certainly kept busy with such a momentous breadth of surfaces to prepare. “On any one day I, and anyone of my full-time grounds team of 35, could be working on golf course renovations, or the next coordinating ground preparations for Goodwood’s Festival of Speed,” said Phil. “What’s really interesting is how every environment has such different performance criteria so I’ve taken a lot of guidance and advice from companies and distributors, DLF being one of them.” As a long-standing user of seed from DLF’s Masterline and Johnsons Sports Seed mixtures, introducing those across the estate was one of Phil’s first exercises. “Ryegrass is the primary species used because of its hardwearing qualities and quick germination making it suitable on a wide variety of sports and fine turf areas. On our cricket wicket, Johnsons J Premier Wicket mixture has been working really well.” J Premier Wicket features a fourcultivar blend of Clementine, Monroe, Dickens and Chardin perennial ryegrass and delivers outstanding shoot density and high disease resistance. “Developments on one of the wickets will hopefully see that prepared to a higher spec with the J Premier Wicket in the hope of heading towards county level play. “On our golf greens we’re on a bent grass overseeding programme and on the grass airfield we’re using the ProMaster 70 mixture from Masterline.” 10 | Turf Matters | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2019
In 2014 Toro marked 100 years in business, but five years on, the company is celebrating its centennial milestone serving the golf industry. The company made its entry into the golf sector with product innovation by developing the industry’s first motorised fairway mower for the Minikahda Club, in Minneapolis. By mounting five lawn mowers on the front of a farm tractor, Toro created the motorised golf course equipment industry and in doing so started a century of listening closely to its customers, developing innovative products based on feedback and available technology, long-standing customer relationships, and
establishing a distribution network to deliver great local service and support. Reesink Turfcare, or Lely Turfcare as it was, has been part of that journey as the sole Toro distributor in the UK for golf and sports fields equipment and irrigation products for almost half that time. “Without a doubt, we owe much of our success to the Toro employees who have helped shape the golf industry with countless innovations,” said Grant Young, General Manager of Toro’s Commercial Business. “As we celebrate a century in the golf industry, we simply want to say a big thank you to our customers and channel partners
for continuing to put your trust in Toro people and products.” David Cole, Managing Director of Reesink Turfcare, revealed that the first Toro product to hit UK shores was the Toro Greensmaster 3 at the beginning of the 1970s. “That innovative ride-on product was born from Toro’s established golf focus and projected the brand into the UK as a producer of high quality, innovative golf equipment in the UK. “We’re extremely proud to have represented Toro and its product values for so many years and we also thank our UK golf customers for their long-standing loyalty, confidence and trust,” said David.
GKB Vstrong for Reading FC Championship league club, Reading Football Club, have been using their GKB VS160 Vstrong for the maintenance of their impressive pitches for over a year now. Adam Grantham, Grounds Manager at the club, explained after trialling many other machines, the Vstrong completely stood out. “It’s performance has met our expectations which was a key factor in us choosing the machine. GKB is well known, for their excellent range of machines, for all day to day use in our industry,” said Adam. As the GKB Vstrong is
produced in the same manner as the GKB Combinator, the machine showcases the technology, operating speed and the reliability of GKB machines demanded by professionals. Adam states that Reading FC have been using
their machine for deep sward clean out or a light verti cut. The beating heart of the machine is the CombiRotor with generically developed 3mm carbide scarifying blades, allowing easy attainable operating depths of 5cm.