John Deere heads for Royal Troon
Royal Troon Golf Club in Ayrshire has been installing its first John Deere irrigation sprinkler heads, supplied by dealer Nairn Brown (Glasgow) Ltd.
Greens, tees and pathways on The Old Course, the Portland Course and the nine-hole Craigend Course, including the practice putting greens, now have in excess of 50 MC15A and MC45AB heads fitted and operating, as part of an ongoing replacement programme started last year.
"We've been doing all the installation work ourselves, gradually upgrading our old impact heads, which are around 10 to 15 years old," says course manager Billy McLachlan. "The John Deere heads are basically like for like replacements, and so they are straightforward to install. Our old heads were just a bit larger, so we need to pack the turf in a little round the new units when they first go in, but that's not been an issue."
Nairn Brown's irrigation specialist Ryan Espie recommended the new John Deere heads after visiting the course and discussing the available options with Billy McLachlan, who then specified the types of head he wanted.
"Having tried them out, we were impressed with the new heads, particularly their reliability, ease of adjustment and the gear driven operating mechanism, and they were also very competitively priced," says Billy. "There's a very fine filter fitted in the base of the heads to protect the valves, so because the overall irrigation system pipework is quite old now, the filters need checking and cleaning a bit more often than usual, but again this hasn't been a problem.
"We are still in the early stages of the replacement programme, seeing how the new John Deere irrigation heads operate across all three courses and making sure they work as efficiently as we need them to. We've really experienced no problems with them, and are happy with the progress so far. If all goes well we will eventually put in around 200 new units altogether."
John Deere is the official golf course equipment supplier to the PGA Tour and the Ladies European Tour, and the only worldwide manufacturer to offer irrigation, domestic and commercial groundscare equipment, utility vehicles, compact tractors and finance, all under one brand name.
For further details and/or photographs, please contact:
Joedy Ibbotson
John Deere Limited
Tel: +44 (0)1949 860491
Fax: +44 (0)1949 860490
Website: JohnDeere.com
Photo caption: The photograph, taken by co-deputy course manager John McLachlan, shows a number of new John Deere irrigation sprinkler heads working on Royal Troon's famous 8th green, The Postage Stamp.