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By Peter Driver in Industry on 24th Mar 2008 13:00
Gogarburn Golf Club, situated in the parkland grounds of a former psychiatric hospital at Newbridge close to Edinburgh airport, is keeping up with its illustrious neighbours after purchasing new course maintenance equipment from local RANSOMES JACOBSEN dealer, Fairways GM of Kinross.
"When I first got an interview here, one of the things I was told by the committee was that they were looking to make the course into a wee gem," said Head Greenkeeper Robert Marshall. "With Dalmahoy a mile up the road from us and Ratho Park close by as well, our presentation has to be immaculate - everything has got to be looking ship shape all the time, even in the wintertime.
"That's why we've purchased these three new Jacobsen machines; an SLF-1880 light fairway mower, a G-Plex III greens mower and an AR3, which is a bunker and surrounds presentation mower."
The club was founded in 1975 and is unique in that it is a 12-hole course; one of only two in Europe, the other being at Blackwaterfoot on the Isle of Arran. Robert Marshall has been heading the greenkeeping team for just over a year.
"I did have a look the Jacobsen AR250 articulated rotary, but it was a wee bit big, so we looked at, and then purchased, the AR3; it's superb, absolutely fantastic. With it we can get right up to the bunkers without the scrub and it just doesn't leave a blade of grass untouched on the golf course.
"The SLF is a good, competitive machine, even when compared to the bigger machines - it competes just as well as they do. It has a fantastic cut, it's just as fast. Also the width of it - I've got wee fairways so it makes my fairways look bigger. If I got a bigger machine, my fairways would look weird. We even cut our bigger tees with it as well!
"Finally, I have to put in a word for Fairways: Their service is very good, you phone them up and they're here. That was what I was looking for -a partnership - for them to help me, for me to get the machines off them and, whoever it was, it was going to be a partnership; and it is."
Read more articles in Industry, by Peter Driver or from March 2008.
