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John Deere wins through at Wheatley
Do big things to big things and you’ll get big results. That’s one of the business philosophies of Pete Sumner, chairman of greens at Wheatley Golf Club in South Yorkshire, and it’s one that is now paying dividends on this attractive 18 hole parkland course on the outskirts of Doncaster.
The club recently conducted a lengthy and extremely thorough review of its whole operation, including the course maintenance equipment used by course manager Paul Dockerty and his team of four green keeping staff. As a result, Wheatley has made a major investment in a comprehensive fleet of John Deere and ancillary machinery, supplied by Hebden Bridge based dealer Bob Wild Grass Machinery.
The new John Deere line-up, financed by John Deere Credit under a five year preferred supplier agreement, includes four 20 Series compact tractors, a 1600T wide area rotary mower, 3245C rotary roughs mower, 997 zero-turn mower, 3235C fairway mower with fairway tender conditioner reels, two 2500A triple greens mowers and an HPX Gator 4x4 utility vehicle, adding to the retained John Deere bunker rake and 2500A greens mower.
Additional machines supplied by Bob Wild include a front bucket ,backhoe loader, water bowser, 3.5-tonne trailer, Terra-Vac materials collector, Commercial tree shredder ,Greentek Thatchaway and vibrating roller attachments, plus new workshop equipment including a grinder and four-post ramp.
“Golf is very competitive in this area,” says Pete Sumner. “There are 14 courses within 15 miles of Wheatley Golf Club, and 78 within 30 miles, so in order to be the preferred choice of the local golfer we have to strive to be the best we can possibly be.
“Last year, the committee agreed to implement an overall strategy to improve the club as a business, including a specific plan for the golf course. At that time we had a very old greens equipment fleet, which couldn’t possibly have coped with the jobs I was asking the greens staff to do in order to make the necessary improvements to the playing surfaces and general course maintenance.
“I therefore sat down with Paul and as a basic starting point, asked what equipment we needed to achieve those improvements. Before we talked to any of the major manufacturers, we visited numerous other golf clubs to see how they operated. Then we compiled a provisional list of the equipment we required and invited tenders from three companies based on our ‘shopping basket’ of new kit.
“The next part of the process was to visit the UK head offices of the manufacturing companies to look at their support services, parts operations and so on, so that we could gain an understanding of their size and structure. Next we arranged site visits to the dealerships, and, crucially, reviewed the relationship between the two. People are just as important to us as the machinery, and we believe that the right people make a massive difference to any deal.
“We then firmed up exactly what was needed from an operational point of view, based on our original shopping list plus recommendations from the manufacturers and dealerships. Paul and his team were involved in all the planning meetings and decisions, and no machine went onto the list until it was demonstrated and tested on our golf course. The final part of the process was to negotiate and agree a financial package.
“This was admittedly a major evaluation process, and we went through everything with a fine toothcomb. Machinery is just part of the overall plan, alongside other aspects such as agronomy, to deliver our vision for the club over the next three to five years. The main benefit is that we now feel very confident about the equipment element and the support we’ve got to help us deliver our objectives.
“We view this very much as a partnership, and have signed a preferred supplier agreement, which we’re now doing with all our major partners. Most of the new equipment has been bought on a five year replacement programme, which will enable us to keep up with the latest technological developments, and maintain the highest standards out on the course.”
Course manager Paul Dockerty admits he has never gone through such a detailed process before in his greenkeeping career. “It’s certainly the first time I’ve ever been so closely involved with the choice of new equipment. We now have the capacity, power and flexibility to do things we couldn’t do before, particularly on grass cutting – the machines are more reliable, and service and maintenance are cheaper, so we can do the jobs more quickly, with less downtime.
“Attachments for the compact tractors are mostly interchangeable, which makes them more versatile, and the new Gator releases a tractor to do more specific jobs around the course. Two of the green keeping staff, Chris Astle and Jamie Moorecroft, have also been to John Deere’s headquarters at Langar for full product training, so that we can make the best use of the whole fleet.”
Pete Sumner insists that John Deere’s dealer Bob Wild deserved on merit to be awarded the deal that finally went through. “As I mentioned before, it’s not just about buying some new mowers – the people who sell, service and support the equipment are the most important part of the jigsaw, and we are happy that we made the right decision choosing to work with Bob Wild and John Deere.”
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