GREENKEEPER INTERNATIONAL GI JUNE 2010 Inside... Inside... LEATHERJACKETS Focus on The insect pests targetting turf Fungicides Featured Dr Terry Mabbut Greenkeepinggets technical PEBBLE - TheArt Unseen or Science? BEACH HOIrrigationW TO ACHIE V E THOSE CUTTING HEIGHTS An intern works at System the US Open venue Irrigation matters uncovered Horses (and Tennis) for Courses Epsom and Wimbledon under the radar A dream Golf fulfilled Course Celtic Manor, home to the Feature 2010 Ryder Cup, is this month’s Course Feature There’s One Tool You Won’t Need When You Service Hunter Sprinklers! The last thing a golfer wants to see is unsightly excavation scars from typical sprinkler maintenance. All Hunter Premium Golf Sprinklers feature TTS - Total Top Service, with all serviceable parts accessible from the top which helps keep your course looking great like nothing else can. Contact Revaho Today for Your Nearest Stockist Penketh Place, West Pimbo, Skelmersdale, Lancashire, WN8 9QX T: 01695 556222 E: [email protected] www.revaho.co.uk WELCOME FROM THE EDITOR BIGGA President Sir Michael Bonallack, OBE Board of Management Chairman – Paul Worster Vice Chairman Andrew Mellon Past Chairman Peter Todd Board Members Chris Sealey, Gary Cunningham, Archie Dunn, Ian Willett, Tony Smith, Elliott Small, Mark Dobell Chief Executive John Pemberton [email protected] Head of Learning & Development Sami Collins [email protected] Head of Membership Department Tracey Maddison [email protected] Contact Us BIGGA HOUSE, Aldwark, Alne, York, YO61 1UF [email protected] www.bigga.org.uk Tel – 01347 833800 | Fax – 01347 833801 GREENKEEPER INTERNATIONAL The official monthly magazine of the British & International Golf Greenkeepers Association Limited. Editorial What a few Communications Manager / Editor Scott MacCallum Tel – 01347 833800 Fax – 01347 833801 months in store [email protected] Design Design and The sporting season is now very much in This month you can be sure there will be Production Editor Tom Campbell full swing and hopefully, we are enjoying more English flags, hanging out of windows the long-promised weather to showcase or attached to cars, than were seen when Tel – 01347 833800 Fax – 01347 833801 the wonderful work of the country’s St George arrived home to a hero’s welcome [email protected] sports turf professionals. having slain his dragon. Advertising As I write, people will be taking in their first On the subject of negative headlines, the Sales Executive look at the new Wentworth, on the eve of the Wembley pitch has been right up there with Kirstin Black BMW PGA Championship, and Chris Kennedy Lord Triesman recently. I certainly don’t profess Tel – 01347 833800 and is team will hopefully we enjoying the to be an expert, but I would suggest that the Fax – 01347 833802 plaudits for a supreme task, successfully reason the Emirates Stadium, not too far from [email protected] completed. Wembley, doesn’t suffer in the same way is because it was built with some consideration to Sales Executive Two weeks later one of Chris’ protégé’s, Jill Rodham Jim McKenzie, will welcome the Tour stars to the fact that it would be home to an area of turf; Tel – 01347 833800 Celtic Manor for the Wales Open which will that it is used as a venue much more sparingly Fax – 01347 833802 give spectators, who haven’t been fortunate than Wembley and that its role as a football [email protected] enough to get a ticket for the Ryder Cup, the pitch is placed about all other commitments. opportunity to walk the 2010 course. The fact that Wembley is used by so Jim doesn’t make things easy for himself many different sports and events to satisfy Printing because not only is he coping with a Wales commercial partners, and generate the revenue Warners Midlands Plc, The Maltings, Manor Lane, Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PH Open and a Ryder Cup in the space of 16 weeks required to repay the £750 million bill it came Tel – 01778 391000 | Fax – 01778 394269 he is also getting married this month - right with, may or may not be the only problem, but Contents may not be reprinted or otherwise in the middle of it all. Good luck to you, Jim, it certainly doesn’t help. reproduced without written permission. Return postage must accompany all materials submitted and the future Mrs McKenzie. I’m sure the There are many wise people working if return is requested. No responsibility can be honeymoon will have been put on hold for a few on resolving the problem and I’m sure assumed for unsolicited materials. The right is reserved to edit submissions before publication. months! that ultimately they will come up with a Although every care will be taken, no Elsewhere there is sport going on everywhere solution, even if it does mean sacrifices and responsibility is accepted for loss of manuscripts, photographs or artwork. Opinions expressed with Wimbledon, Test cricket, the World Cup, compromises. are not necessarily those of the Association, and no responsibility is accepted for such in South Africa, not to mention the European But in the meantime sit back and enjoy the content, advertising or product information Athletic Championships, in Barcelona, and the feast of sport we have to look forward to over that may appear. Circulation is by subscription. Subscription rate: UK £50 per year, Europe and Commonwealth Games, in Delhi. the next few months. There will be excitement, Eire £65, Rest of the World £95. The magazine is As an avid sports fan I’m not sure if my lady thrills, spills anticipation and the odd also distributed to BIGGA members, golf clubs, local authorities, the turf industry, libraries and wife will be too happy that some of my regular disappointment… and no doubt, at some stage, central government. chores may be neglected because I’m glued to a penalty shootout! the much anticipated New Zealand – Slovakia clash, later this month. It just shows how much sport can impact on society and, while it often comes with negative headlines attached, in the main there is little Scott MacCallum ISSN: 0961– 6977 that can galvanise a country more than sport. © 2010 British and International Golf Editor Greenkeepers Association Limited JUNE 2010 GI 3 CONTENTS GI A look at what’s inside the magazine this month JUNE 2010 COURSE FEAT URE 18 FEATURES 18 A dream fulfilled Scott MacCallum meets up with Celtic Manor’s Jim McKenzie, a man with a hectic few months A dream ahead of him. fulfilled Jim McKenzie bought into the dream of a Welsh businessman in 1993. In October that 25 Greenkeeping dream becomes a reality. Scott MacCallum – art of science visited Celtic Manor to hear the story Greg Evans MG reveals the secret Back in 1993, a wealthy The land, in a South Wales valley days time would host the Ryder worked under Chris Kennedy, and the time since he sat with Jim in est sporting event in the world in ABOVE: 18th on the Roman to cutting his greens at 2mm. businessman talked on the outskirts of Newport, was Cup, listening to that same young heading west. that house – where he’d been born terms of television viewers after the Road at The Celtic Manor resort, Newport, South Wales passionately to a talented beautiful, but it had never echoed greenkeeper recount how he felt “Within an hour, though, if he’d incidentally - looking out at the Olympics and the World Cup,” said young greenkeeper about to an anguished cry of “Fore!”, nor when he listened to Sir Terry Mat- asked me to punch my way through beautiful Usk Valley. Jim, who is now the third longest his vision of building a golf had it heard the satisfying sound thews, the owner of Celtic Manor the wall I’d have asked him which Five golf courses, 10 Wales Opens, serving employee of Celtic Manor. course. It was a tough pitch, of a ball dropping four inches into a Resort, explain his dreams for the hand he wanted me to use. He a superb five star hotel, two incred- “As Wales will never host an not because the idea of cup, but this man was talking about future. was that much of an inspirational ible clubhouses, a Golf Academy, Olympics or a World Cup this is as building a course over the holding European Tour events over “When he started to talk about character.” a home for the Welsh Golf Union, big as it gets.” land surrounding the house it. He was even talking about host- golf tournaments and Ryder Cups It would be fair to suggest that innumerable world class events All the work that has been car - where the meeting was taking ing a Ryder Cup! and I thought he was absolutely even Terry Matthews, and his and, at the beginning of October ried out at Celtic Manor has been 29 Leatherjackets place, was so outrageous, but Some 17 years on I sat in a nuts,” said Jim McKenzie, who was reach for the stars philosophy, this year, the pinnacle of it all – that done with a view to hosting the Cup. because of the sheer scale of luxury clubhouse overlooking the in the process of considering leav- would never have envisaged what R yder Cup. The first golf course built was the continue to what he was describing. magnificent golf course that in 141 ing The Wentworth Club, where he ultimately has been achieved in “The Ryder Cup is the third larg- Roman Road which was followed GI GI undermine turf 18 JUNE 2010 JUNE 2010 19 Dr Terry Mabbett casts his expert eye over the pesky leatherjacket.