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Finance & Service fit the bill
A new course manager was the catalyst for The Hesketh Golf Club in Southport to completely upgrade its John Deere course maintenance equipment fleet last summer – and all for less than the annual cost of the club’s previous machinery replacement programme, thanks to finance from John Deere Credit.
Peter McVicar came to Hesketh’s challenging championship links course in July from Machrihanish Golf Club, where he worked as course manager for seven years, returning the Tom Morris designed links course to its former glory. One of his first decisions was to replace the club’s ageing machinery fleet.
“During initial discussions with the club secretary/manager Martyn Senior and members of the Board, we set our goals for where we wanted to be in one year and five years, and realised we needed machines we could rely on, which we just couldn’t do with the older kit,” says Peter. “Some of the servicing was being done in-house and some by various suppliers, but this system wasn’t working, so we compiled a ‘wish list’ and invited the major suppliers to demonstrate what they had to offer.”
The decision was finally taken to acquire a complete new range of equipment from the local John Deere dealer Turner Groundscare of Tarvin, near Chester, on a five year replacement package deal. These included a 3225C fairway mower, 3245C roughs mower, 2500A and 2500B greens mowers, three 220C walk-behind greens mowers, X740 lawn tractor, two CX Gator Compact utility vehicles with three trailers, Pro Gator with Ty-Crop ProPass 180 top dresser, 4520 compact tractor with front loader and 3520 compact tractor.
“We already had a five year replacement programme in place for our older equipment, spending our annual capital budget for one or two machines as and when necessary,” explains Martyn Senior. “Using the new John Deere Credit finance plan, we now have a completely up-to-date fleet for an annual cost that is actually less than the budgeted expenditure that the club would have incurred over the next five years, if we’d continued the way we were.
“Just as importantly, regular servicing costs are included in the programme, so that all the machines are properly serviced by the dealer, both mid-season on the course and over the winter at the dealership’s own workshop. Add to this the fact that we now have a highly capable, qualified and motivated team of greenkeeping staff, led by a very experienced course manager, and I would say that this is quite a significant development for the future of The Hesketh Golf Club.”
During the demonstration process, Peter McVicar was also able to show the club committee the time saving and cost benefits of using new technology, particularly the Pro Gator and top dresser combination, which has reduced the time taken to cover the course from a day to less than two hours.
“Ian Roberts of Turner Groundscare was particularly helpful in providing us with demonstration machines and showing us how each one worked, so the greens staff were able to try out all the key machines on the course for a couple of days before making the final choice,” adds Peter. “We also knew from previous experience that we could rely on the dealer and John Deere to help us out whenever necessary – they don’t just sell you a machine and then forget about you.”
With the help of the new John Deere fleet, Peter and his team aim to have the Hesketh course in Open Championship condition ready for its next major tournament, the R&A Junior Open in 2008.
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