Toro 'Total Solution' for Chipping Sodbury Golf club

Rosie Duckworthin Golf

Chipping Sodbury Golf Club has become a Total Solutions customer after signing both a new five-year Toro machinery deal and investing in a new Toro irrigation system.

John Keenaghan, course manager of the 18-hole Cotswold course, decided to remain with Toro machinery after first switching to an exclusivity agreement five years ago.

But he's new to the golf giant's irrigation products, after a state-of-the-art system, coupling Toro's brand new Lynx software with proven Golf Decoder Controller (GDC) field hardware, was installed last winter.

Says John: "We stick with Toro because it's just quality-built machinery.

The existing fleet has been no trouble at all in the time I've had it. I'm also encouraged by the fact that a lot of my industry peers use Toro, plus, as a keen golfer, I play a lot of courses, so get a chance to use the machines and talk to my contacts about them.

So I know Toro machines are well built and are going to last."

John's new additions include a Greensmaster TriFlex 3400 riding greensmower, a Reelmaster 5510-D fairway mower, two Reelmaster 3100-D Sidewinder fairway models with shifting cutting units, and a Groundsmaster 4500-D wide-area roughs machine.

"They're all cracking pieces of kit," John continues. "I was like a schoolboy in a sweetshop when they arrived!"

Chipping Sodbury, like so many clubs, experienced record grass growth last year during the hot, wet conditions.

So robust, productive mowers were a 'must' for John. He continues: "We're a bit of a 'grass factory' here, with the excessive rainfall making it difficult to keep up with the fairway cutting last summer.

So this year I went for a slightly wider cut in the 5510-D, with the bigger units able to cope if we get the extra grass growth. And if we don't, we'll just get an increase in productivity.

The wide-area 4500-D roughs mower was another priority as this is out cutting all week, clocking up over 40 hours per week. So that's a key machine, too."

But John's hopes for a dry summer this year, so as to experience the full features and benefits of his Lynx-GDC system, were completely fulfilled.

"Our irrigation covers the greens, approaches and some fairways," he says, "but we'd like to upgrade to tees coverage in future. It's all part of our course improvement plan to get the approaches looking better and improve the general aesthetics by getting higher quality grasses in there for more definition. It's a fantastic system and the back up is great.

I couldn't wait to use it properly and was just praying for a hot summer!"

For more information visit: www.Toro.co.uk

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