Course Manager at Wallasey Golf Club – John McLoughlin – joins us for a chat about his career, what has led him to working back on The Wirral and his philosophy on greenkeeping. It’s a frank and refreshing take on his role with a focus on leadership, marginal gains and brilliant basics! Much of it sounds like something you would normally find in management consulting, except John is applying it to his work on the course!
We had a great day at Wallasey with John, learning more about the history at the club; the creation of the Stableford system by Dr Frank Stableford, Bobby Jones and his time there in 1930, as well the course and the work that they are beginning to embark on with the help of CDP
so John welcome back the podcast a repeat second one yeah how
you feeling yeah uh privileged yeah but joy I obviously wasn’t there since the
first time we’ve met properly and uh you’re up at the open at St Andrews and spent some time chatting to Tom were
you up in the stands or something like that yeah no I’d met Tom uh a couple of times before we’d actually gone temp in
Bowling oh yeah when he was up at Holy lake so uh
we just bumped into each other at the open uh on the Monday I think it was when they did the sort of the ceremony
where the the all the greats come back and played so we were having a chat and
Tom said geez the chat we’re having now is too good for this we need to do a
podcast because it’s really interesting that and it’s really cool chat so he said let’s go on the stands we went on
the stand on the second tee and there was just the two of us and and away we went and beautiful and I thought it was
in the stand somewhere good week that did you yeah it was amazing yeah it got a little I went for the practice days uh
and it was rammed then so Saint Andrews is one that you want to go
to just because it’s so special but come tournament days watching golf is
difficult so went and watched uh the the four days from your own home and that was nice actually yeah yeah nice good
stuff um well firstly big thank you because I think uh you’ve squeezed us into a
fairly hectic golfing schedule I’m I’m sort of lucky to find you not on the golf course playing I believe yeah
that’s what my wife says as well yeah are you in a minority of
people that work you know should say Obviously course manager here at wallacy first time I’ve been here are you in the
minority of guys in the business who absolutely are desperate to go and play it a second notice uh there is a lot of
really Keen golfers but there’s no uh there’s no middle
ground really you get some guys who aren’t interested and you get some guys who love playing in our in our team
specifically in our green staff but we’ve got a scratch team it’s that good the standard of golf is so good you’re
just in your team just in our team yeah incredible yet so we’ve got uh
the collective handicap of six or seven of us will probably
would be a plus handicap yeah your team of green Keepers here at Wallace is com
as a collective handicap in plus digits collectively I’d say almost yet that’s
incredible yet so we’ve uh we’ve got some really good golfers on the team and there’s three of us going to play next
week in the national championship so is that an anvil I believe I am really yeah so that’s next week’s show
but some of the best course managers I know uh and some of the you know the
people that I’ve always looked up to they don’t they’re not interesting golf so there’s no Rhyme or Reason but it’s
one of the things that uh I feel really lucky about my job is I’ve
connected with people you know we we spend time meeting like-minded people so
an offset of that is I get to play a lot of golf courses for free on the basis of
knowing so many people so I wouldn’t say I take advantage of that but it’s it’s a nice it’s a nice thing to have yet I’ve
obviously worked in the golf industry for 25 years or built up a lot of friends within the industry so we get a
lot of visitors at what we’ll see and and I get hosted a lot of courses and and
and it is certainly a pack of the job for me it’s one of the things that I love that I can see the other week I
went up to rope of call and played with Ian Kinley and looked rounds and that was incredible yeah we were talking
about this before so that was brilliant so it just you know raindrop stuff and and fitted as in
which was great and we brought a lot of as a friend so that’s nice how much because we’re going to get into some
stuff about Wallace and stuff shortly but how much do you feel you could be at a disadvantage doing what you do without
an appreciation for how the game is played and I don’t I’m not trying to that’s maybe deliberately provocative
but you know Tom Doak not not an enormous golfer in himself you know plays but not it’s not that it’s not the
sole purpose so I’m sensing maybe not but is there a massive disadvantage to
doing what you do without playing golf so my train of thought is you know some of the best green Keepers haven’t played
golf but for me the one thing that I feel is a is a benefit to me is when I
walk across golf greens generally and I’m not playing golf I’ve got to feel whether the fam whether
they’re soft what you know how receptive they are and you get a feel free but
nothing beats hitting the ball into a green and and feeling how the ball reacts and if you don’t play golf that’s
the one thing I think you you miss out of so I can I can go to a course and
Inland course a lynx course and if I hit a 56 degree from 100 yards
there’s a way that reacts to How firm the greens are and just walking on them doesn’t really tell you exactly yeah
put it there’s so much you can do with the you know plague and yeah and all that stuff and we do do a lot of data
collection here at well she’s so part of our thing is we we we do uh data every
single day as if we’re hosting a major championship every day at Walter so that’s part of our routine so
but we’re very data driven but also I’m very we’re 50 data scientifically and 50
artists and how we operate and I think golf the way I play is obviously very
data driven and want to know the how the green speeds are and the rest of it but it’s a feel elements there’s that
Artistry of playing and getting out there and and so that’s where I stand on it right
yeah and I guess there’s little things like you know an understanding of how Contours will react and produce different shots around the room which to
a non-golfer is quite hard to picture because we’ve all been in loads of different situations so you’ve kind of had loads of stuff to draw on take me
back to the beginning in your career because when we we sort of dance through it when we were having a sandwich downstairs and a drink but it was gold
that was coming out you’ve worked in the industry for ages but you’ve got a really interesting sort of path that gets you to here I feel anyway so where
did it start and when you first said job in the industry came up yeah so I’ve been in the golf industry for 20 25
years now uh in different for in different forms so from the age of 16 uh
I was I was pretty decent to football as well and I had the choice of really pursuing football or or really
pursuing golf and appetite preferred the individual aspect
of golf so I sort of put my the football on the back seat and really pursued Golf
and I got to streams of playing professionally maybe golf yeah when I
was 16 17 yeah so it was sort of uh you know can I have a go with football and
try and make it as a professional footballer or do a try and make it as a golfer uh so I think I had one season
maybe where I played a lot of amateur golf and didn’t wear much but my potent was generally way too streaky
so I’d play I’ve played with a lot of the top players and a lot of the guys on the tour now and
I was generally averaging four to five puts around more than more than these guys the Striking of the ball wasn’t too
dissimilar but over a four round tournament having 20 shots 20 shots yet so that’s a significant Delta I think I
remember playing with Dave horse or Formby uh and I think our scores were very very
similar uh I think I beat him in the morning he beat me in the afternoon striking of the
world was very very similar but he just ported me off the park you know everything he looked at either wenon or
didn’t go in and I had five more puts than in both rounds so I will be scored some level
from that point I was like this isn’t I’m not going to be a golfer my potent isn’t isn’t up to where it should be and
it’s not going to be rarely so when by the time I was 18 19 I was
thinking I do want to stay in golf uh I love golf and and that’s all that sort of the last five from 16 to sort of 20.
I’d always you know golfer being the main focus so there was a course at my school through
Central Lancashire golf course management with an Agronomy element but it looked at like the history of golf
and golf course architectures so uh I carried out that coach not really thinking I was going to be a green
keeper or a course manager but I just wanted to do yeah yeah so it you know it was a university course and stuff and
not that I was overly academic but it was something you know to carry on so so
rarely enjoyed the course and then from that I did a a placement at Gleneagles
green keeping on on the golf Awards scheme they used to take six seven green Keepers or trainee green Keepers or
college students every year to do and like an award scheme they used to you know say they’d pick the six seven top
students throughout the country it was quite a big prestigious thing and a lot of the people that went on the awards
scheme of Glenn Eagles are doing amazing in the industry now there’s a lot of top people that have come from that program
is that just the Excellence and the standards they have there yeah so yeah this this I think they probably
stopped the program 15 16 years ago but for 10 years they were bringing six to seven six or
seven of the best students to Glen Eagles to work so they probably had 60 to 80 students that went through that
program uh and so uh started me green keeping at
Glen Eagles and I loved it and it was like wow this this is brilliant I actually really really enjoy yeah the
screen keeping so went went back to Central Lancashire in my school finished my college and stuff and then uh
I had so at that point I had my qualifications what could cause a pastor had some really good experience sort of
18 months of Glenn Eagles uh behind me and then back into the
opportunity to travel then so I for the next 10 years I pretty much traveled non-stop around the world yet so I was I
was just doing like little short term assignments so there was some short-term assignments and and some of it I was working on the ladies tour in the
European tours as an official and mainly with as a scoring uh official so I go
around and set up the scoring systems and but I did some media so salaam cup I
was a press officer and different stuff at this point it had a lot of connections within the industry one from
working at Glen Eagles and and then working on the tour so that allowed me to really travel so
it went out to Australia so we did two I went to Australia four years on the run
so I worked at Rome Melbourne uh worked at the Australian golf club for the
Australian Open uh and then from there went to uh America and did a lot of
traveling in America and support it Riviera Country Club and then when I was
there I’d spent a day with the superintendent at La Country Club and had traveled around so went over to
Canada stayed in Canada for a while so me travels took me around and and while
I was doing all this I was working on the tour as well which was great so if I if I was home in the summer I would be
uh I’d be all over Scandinavia and Switzerland and I’d go to Holland and
work and I’d go and play Canada because it was me after that so so I was very fortunate that I was just engrossed with
golf uh and because I had a background in green keepment I could get rolls of different
clubs and and it allowed me to travel uh so
just don’t know I was raw Melbourne like you touched it was incredible I can’t sort of skipped by that that’s just got
to be so Rome album was another one where each the always I suppose they haven’t hosted as many tournaments in
recent years obviously they’ve had the president’s gone but back back 15 20 years ago they would have a European
Tour event most years so they would take on again this similar six six International staff every summer
to work to help stage the event so again the staff that have come through
that’s sort of torn and prep work at Rome Melbourne is incredible he’s got
these guys have gone to run all the top courses in the world so I was one of the the six I think 2003 that that did the
tournament set up for the Heineken classic which any else went on to win but they used to let the staff play golf
so yes you you had to ask the superintendent but there was there was four of us who were really into our goal
so I spent a summer playing Royal Melbourne every night it was incredible what was it about working with raw
Melvin that really attracted you to John yeah it was the freaky yeah it was the worst in the ease it was free golf at
rule ma’am it was incredible so so we spent the summer uh which was our winter time there’s so
much so so from December to March April playing golf at Royal Melbourne and then
because I was a half decent golfer there was a lot of you know the amateur circuit in uh
in around the Melbourne is great so I went and played in some of the amateurs yeah some of that sort of stuff so it
was fantastic got to play Kingston Heath got all that stuff Metropolitan got to
play all the top courses what was your favorite is it raw Melbourne well Rome album was amazing and uh it was an
experience but Metropolitan blew me mind yeah really yeah not uh I suppose at
that point the condition was so good that it was rumored to have the best Fairways in the world the fairways at
Metropolitan they had a world golf championship event there a couple years before and I think all the players were
like these are the best Fairways we’ve ever played off they’re almost like greens and it gets very little play
Metropolitan so and all on those sambal courses they take the trolley through the greens
when you look at the Agronomy out there what is it that makes that is is the ground kind of like the defining feature
in the sand belt stuff would you say because they tend enter I’ve never played any of those courses but they
seem to be a big promotion of width there’s almost no long grass out there they have these bunkers that almost look
like they’re sort of propping the greens up they’re so sheer the edges of the bunkers it looks like it’s a completely
different type of land to anything you see anywhere else in the world but yeah so the land is sort of heathlandy in in
in aspect but the unique thing about the sand belt in in Melbourne is it’s the
soil structure so the soil structure is like no other so it the soil structure
in the sand belt compacts and I don’t know what it is it was probably it could
have been a a nice a nice and a glacier shift where it picks sediment up and
moved and dropped it over we’re talking Ice Age movement but the soil structure in the sand belt is unique to anywhere
which allows them to almost have these sheer faces on bunkers so the degree of
the drains still really well yeah because it it’s it’s a Sandy sort of Dusty material but compact so that’s
where people try and replicate these bunkers where they have the Green Run Straight Into the Bunker and it’s very
steep but on the nature of this the soil structure can hold that if you try to do
that anywhere else in the world the soil structure would just cave in and collapse Parkland courses in Britain it’s not recommended it just it just
doesn’t work so the the blessed with the soil structure and the soil structure it
still drains and it’s extremely firm so the conditions the grass or the the
grasses that grow out there obviously it’s very warm and dry in the summer it can dry down and create really fam
surfaces right so if if the soil structure wasn’t able to
compact like it is the sand belt would be wouldn’t be the sound belt no no no so but a lot of people wouldn’t know
that they just think oh they build the bunkers like that because yeah I mean obviously there’s a festival of McKenzie
stuff exactly yeah but the ground is what makes it so good which you know I think you can yeah yeah we obviously sat
above the the 18th green here at wallacy play a lot of Links Golf ourselves you know the way the course plays on the
ground is so pivotal to to the result you get right I mean an amazing experience earlier this year playing
Paul Monarch which is you know almost exclusively Fescue it’s really firm as a result and then another dimension comes
out in the course and it sounds like something similar there you did a little bit in the west coast as well so you mentioned Riv and LACC and stuff like
that was there any kind of you know our our local listeners here will sense that you’ve moved back not too far from home
obviously being a liver pudlian there was some possibility of staying out in America or being further yeah so I uh to
spend some time out in uh in LA and and I traveled there before another couple
of another friends out there so uh there was a chance of me then maybe doing sort
of an internship at La Country Club but it I on my travels to and from uh
Australia America I met my wife who have now been married to for 11 years so that
sort of uh she’s been looking through it for 11 years as well exactly yeah of course all that time so she was used to
me traveling uh luckily so uh I met my wife and she was from Liverpool uh I was
still to and from Australia at that point she did come out to Australia and spend a little bit of time with me uh
but I come back to Liverpool uh which I thought I’ll come back for six
seven months and then I I I’ll be going back traveling and it it didn’t happen at that point you know I’ve been
traveling and a lot and at that point I was you know late 20s and
sort of uh I went I went to Grange Park in St towns because my friend was course manager I only went to help Mel for
three weeks and I ended up there for 10 years at this point so that was sort of how things Destiny to how things change
I absolutely love Liverpool the city’s been on the massive up since
2000 to the early 2000s so uh come back home was actually quite nice and
obviously the golf in the area is so good I was you know I was a member of West Langston was there for 25 years so
I was getting to play all the golf courses in in Southport yeah
roller coaster so being at westlinks you know the scratch League that westland’s
playing in and the south Portland District is immense you spent all winter playing Hillside better for me so it
wasn’t a hardship to come back and relocate to Liverpool because again I was still a key in golfer and the golf’s
just phenomenal as well everyone to the standards amazing yeah really good it’s
uh so from what I thought would be a short
spell I ended up uh a Grange Park for 10 years and I was I
ended up sort of as Deputy course manager there for the last four or five years I was there
but luckily on my travels I wasn’t really looking at Agronomy too heavily I
was I was looking at culture and team culturing how teams developed and how the superintendent managed and set up
them teams on a daily basis so uh I was very fortunate to to witness some of the
you know the most elite golf operations in the world so where impressed you the most well were you like I genuinely
did not think you could run an operation that well where you were like yeah so there was like so there’s different
aspects of every area for the Nissan open were re some of this might make a
lot of sense but they were re-spinning the units up and sharpening them every single night that makes it sense which
yeah so it wouldn’t make sense but it’s just fairly you know it’s pretty incredible
so the units that cut the grass the the mower blades you know they have to be super sharp for to really perform well
so they’ll tune them every night so just get they were doing them every night so yeah every night which is which is just
pretty crazy really so we you know most clubs will be doing them every two three months and they’ve been doing them every
single night even you know I think when I’ve worked the open and and the rides a cup and everything they would do them
the week before and they’d be super sharp but then they wouldn’t do them because they wouldn’t do the make unless they nicked a stone or they wouldn’t but
they would do them every night it was like wow this is but you’ve never seen anything sharp it was incredible uh so
there was the idea was I was pinching the best bits from everywhere
uh you know he worked the rides a couple of gun Eagles went back there in 2014 was it uh
and you know how how the superintendent delivered the debriefs of the Moon and
how you know the provides of pastries and coffee and how they were fed and or or if they were doing uh uh education
during the tournaments during the downtime so I wouldn’t say there was any you know every single place I’d pick up you know
the one percent yeah yeah and but collectively over all them places you know I had a pretty Clear Vision on what
it would take to get somewhere to an elite level so that I mean that’s one of my questions is you know to
to get a course to an elite level is it the marginal gains is it those kind of little two percenters is it is it about
you know I mean I I can you like I said to you how big a difference is the equipment you’re using and you’re like
yeah that’s like enormous I mean I take it for someone who’s just got a complete idiot’s guide here to to Green keeping
what are the absolute what are the kind of like core components good kit what a fairly efficient work work rotor and
kind of how you manage the task because I’m guessing you can kind of just burn energy not not getting much done what
are the kind of key ingredients so the role of sort of uh of a course manager
is is relatively substantial and a lot of this isn’t seen so a lot of the time
you operate in the half a million 700 000 pound Fleet of Machinery uh which is
huge and and having the right kit to do the job efficiently is is critical as
well so one of the first things that I’ve done when I come to Wallace I analyze just every bit of kit for every
role that it that it did on on the course and it was very uh it come to uh
like very quickly that we didn’t have the kit on the Machinery to set the course about an elite level is that just
because it’s like worn or like yeah a lot of the a lot of the material a lot
of the equipment was starting to age but how we operate
I could take you down 100 rabbit holes
so yeah so the the way we operate is we we have
a five hour window where we set the course up to tournament standard every single morning so we need every bit of
Kit to be able to complete its task in five hours so our roof need to be able to be caught in five hours our Fairways
need to be able to be caught in five hours our aprons are greens everything we do so that allows us to turn them and
set up the course every single day I’m not going to take longer than five hours so and you’ve sort of defined that
you’ve like well I want to be able to know that I can just get everything on point in that time yeah so in in the open that there are our five hour window
for us because they’ve got half 60 time in the open so that they will be starting on the course the staff around
four-ish and they’ve got a two-hour window so they would have to have 12 Fairway mowers to cut in two and a half
hours so because our first tea time is seven o’clock and we’re in a half five we know we need we set up base our
operation on we can keep heads of golf as if the first group was the open yeah and so we need a five-hour window able
to be able to fully cut the course so we needed to invest in kit to allow us to do that so we made a significant
investment uh in Machinery at whilst you and I started to allow us to turn and set up the
course every day so that meant from it we had one fairway mower that used to
take 10 hours to cut the fairways so that that would mean you know it was spread over two days uh if they wanted
to cut all the fairways you know they were within golf cutting Fairways so we got two which took it down to five hours
so my operation would only really work if we were able to buy two Fairway Motors so that’s what we’ve done so that
the Machinery is a huge aspect of being able to present the course at an elite level and then from there which is
obviously the most important thing is staff so you need the right amount of staff with the right kit and you need
the staff to be inspired and developed to be able to to be able to produce the standard that’s quite a big mix though right
because I think you know we were talking about jobs in the green keeping industry weren’t we a little bit earlier but
you know it is that is it as an attractive career route now as it maybe was 20 years ago I
don’t know I mean you know is there are there more jobs out there is it harder to find good people what’s the
sense yeah so the most difficult thing now in in the golf industry as a whole is is recruitments and recruiting staff
there’s just there’s not that there’s not the people coming through for for the jobs and a lot of green keeping it
seemed to be quite unsociable now you’ve got to work weekends you know our staff come in at 5am every weekend Saturday
and Sunday you know it takes you know they’re up at four or four uh that we
start at between five and a half five all summer so again you’re up at four half four uh
so it’s not that the the hours are relatively unsocial so it’s not that attractive although I see it is
brilliant please finish at one o’clock yeah a lot of our
stuff half one every day in this in the summer so it’s it’s how you look at it but I’m very much uh
glass half full so um I’m really positive that you know we we’ve got a fantastic team at Welsh
incredible green stuff if you invest in them and and you pay well and uh look
after staff then there’s still club’s doing very well yeah so it’s like this
the fittest survived so to speak so we are you know that there’s a big push now to try and get our staff on more money
to you know to retain them because we have lost staff in the last two years to go to factories to go to other
careers because it pays five grand more yeah and money is obviously you know
makes the world go around leadership’s kind of a little bit undervalued I know that’s like your sort of you know that’s
your big thing right is how do I lead a team like you know we’re recording this podcast we should say you know you’ve
got a management meeting and you’re like I’m gonna send one of my guys into her because it’s just about development is
that overlooked in the industry a little bit so basically all the uh
all the green keeping qualifications and and entry level into green keeping and
even as you as you move up to higher level green keeping at no point is management or development staff or HR or
or any of this is you don’t do any schooling or college work or any
anything at all to do with how to develop and manage staff there’s 15 staff at Wellesley that I
need to manage managing the team is ultimately the hardest job uh the golf course is the easy bit and there is a
massive black hole in the industry where course managers and and head green Keepers haven’t been given the skill set
to manage people do they so the the you get a lot of people that have you know worked of course for 20 years and has
just naturally progressed because you know they they’ve been the next day yeah and they could be very good green
keepers are very knowledgeable but and it’s not their fault there’s been no Pathway to educate for management and
and Leadership so and again I was lucky to travel around but I’m very passionate
about leadership and team culture and how to build elite team culture so I suppose that goes from me football and
days and and all the rest of it so for for 20 years I self-educated me read
a lot of books listened to a lot of podcasts and a lot of research when a met leads us in different Industries and
fields which I then could bring to the course management industry because there’s elements of things like Clive
wood whether you can just drag and drop it right it’s like so oh we got uniform
that’s just on point and makes us feel better yeah absolutely and then it’s like okay now look the part I play the
part you know so yeah there’s a lot there’s there’s a there’s a lot of collab with stuff that that we mirror uh
that that I that I look at David bears for two is obviously the cycling coach he talked about the one percent rule so
we uh blood transfusions down in the green keeper sheds all sorts going on yeah
so so we uh so yeah so this is sort of what I sort of geek out on is a lot of
these you know the management and developing people and how to create a high performance team with it within
within specifically within green keeping yeah uh and within I’ve been at Wall Street uh two
years in November and we we we’ve had the team working at a really high level all year obviously the you know the
nature of the best is we are working to develop each other all the time so when we’re no way a finished article but you
know the daily standards we produce is fantastic and it’s brilliant Basics so we’re you know we’re we’re empowering
people to to work at the highest level for them he’s like you’ve never heard a course manager talk like that and with
that and this I say that in a good way but it’s like you just reeled off stuff there that could have come straight out
of an Accenture or a McKinsey corporate world and it’s like the the principles
apply brilliant Bass text you know all that kind of like elite team culture you should never hear you know it’s first
time I’ve heard people talk about you know their teams in that way in this industry it’s just something that’s
overlooked it’s just yeah it’s been so powerful yet so obviously we we have a
thing where no staff works with Ben and you know no staff works with birds with bed and yet so you don’t go out on the
course and and work if you’ve got issues you know because so
what do you think so that’s one of them so you have like a number of things like can you share the secret sauce here
uh like what are your sort of like pivotal things then so one of those is no staff works with a burden yeah so
that that so that would be our daily habit so again not to go down too many rabbit
holes we have a structure where we have we have a vision and and the vision is
to uh highly perform every day and and positive positively impact the industry
so we have a vision where everything we do on a daily basis would positively impact the industry so if anyone comes
in to copy or any of our staff will go to elsewhere they will be able to positively impact the industry which is
quite powerful so we have a vision where we’re not saying we’re going to be industry leaders or we are industry
leaders we just have a vision to positively impact yeah which is more powerful uh than saying we’re going to
be the best maintained course in the world or we’re going to be the best because we’re never going to be the best you can’t control
but we can control positively impacting then we have uh then we have
non-negotiable values so we’ve got a list of values that people have to sign up to when they join the team so uh
trust Integrity uh
so I don’t really have to manage that everyone manages that because the whole episode
yeah to everyone start sloping off early to go work on a short game or whatever everyone stands up to the the
non-negotiables and and that’s collectively as a team uh so if anyone
was to overstep the land then it would be very obvious and evident including myself because I I uphold the same as
everyone else then we have then we have Collective values so we have values collectively which which the team
decided on so okay I’m the boss but collectively depending on what time the staff want to start how how we
communicate How We Do appraisals how we uh
how we structure the day a lot of a lot of this is collectively so we only we
only work collectively so as a team it’s not just me everyone’s empowered to to make choices a choice and be part of the
overall picture of the team so uh so so that’s great so the the collective
values are really important and we have pillars that we we aspire to uh
which is excellence and passion integrity and then something that I’ve
been working on more recently is daily habits so this is this is something that’s relatively new and that I’ve
created within within our within our team so the idea is uh
we nail the basics every single day and that and that includes daily habits so
everything we everything we do is relatively basic we’re not we’re not
we’re not doing anything extraordinary but you’re doing well yeah we’re brilliant you just cut a hole so when we
cut a hole there’s only one way to do that and all 10 people in the team know exactly the same and that’s and that’s
this is not exactly where this is exactly where they put the box so they cut so uh you know if we do course set
up and how they land the T markers up the tea markers have got to be eight behind most Stripes every single time so
it’s easy to do but obviously to have the basics pair pair perfect is is difficult yeah so it’s a matter of like
discipline yeah it’s around things that are like you say if you’re stripping back to a really pure form they’ve quite
basic things lower t-box and put the teas in nine 99 of golf courses out
there just mow the tea box in any direction or however they want to do it and they put the tea markers down yeah
and if they point in the right direction that’s a bonus but you’re like that is a discipline I want that done yeah than
anything because we can control that we can control that so so the basics so we do data collection every morning where
we collect the greens we stimp the greens we rank the greens we look at the moisture level it takes half an hour we do that every morning it’s it’s
basically how many clubs do that sort of stuff daily um for tournaments set up the wood but
for daily General clubs like this you wouldn’t do a daily stint readers would
you a wet December and the world people are but it’s Basics isn’t they just do it it’s like it’s pouring down
yeah it’s brilliant basic so everything we do is very easy to do strip down but
it means no one would I’m not saying everyone works without
being 100 all the time because that’s impossible but what we do is our philosophy is to work without bed and so
if you’ve got an issue you know we we discuss it before you go out on the course because if you see if if you’re driving around
on the course and you see a piece of litter if you’ve got bed and you’re not going to pick that letter up if you if
you if if you see letter but you are in a bit of a mood because someone’s been
off with you that morning and you’re gonna go oh I’m going to leave that letter so you want them to leave that back of the green keeper shed yeah so so
once once once we start on the course and have our have our debrief which takes half an hour and this is all about
reflectively and so so uh we reflect every single day on our
performances then try and be one percent better than yesterday reflectively so how’d you do that
Keepers together to reflect on they have to they talk through their jobs in in
minute detail every single day so we learn collectively so once once once we
give me an example can I put you under the go give me an example of something you’ve done today wait how you would how would you reflect on that for that one
percent uh I don’t know for instance this morning we were uh
we reflected on yesterday so the fairways uh reverted range yesterday so
there’s one guy with with the the crew with 80 grading so he would talk and stringent detail of what they went on
the course so they did the 18th first then they did the second path then they did the third Freer they did the 45th so
it’s in very very detail and so we would reflect on it could he have done that better could he have done hole seven
before six but as a collective so the guy whoever was cutting teas yesterday
would go through he could teasing and the order he went in and and collectively we try and see if we could do that better was there anything that
they could have done better on that route so we reflect on that every single day so this is a lot of stuff where
you know I’m developing and it’s organically growing and it’s philosophies which I now should be sort
of uh internationally about these philosophies so again I’m speaking I’m speaking at uh
Villa Park in November for bigger and we’re talking about managing construction structuring uh Team so this
is but it all comes down to the the the the Crux of it is is doing things
consistently every day to an elite level which is actually basic yeah
honestly it is infectious to listen to that sort of stuff like that’s mental and then the other the
other sort of pathway that is so we don’t we don’t have a goal we don’t have a goal we’re not like we’re we’re better
than holy Lake we’re better than Westlands we’re not orientated around course rankings so although I’m on run
competence that’s irrelevant we don’t have goals we’re not looking we have we have uh oh all we’re looking
at is doing the right things properly every single day and collectively so when
you’ve got 10 15 people working to the best of their ability the sum of all
that’s part is greater than the than of course then uh the output is greater than almost the
input I’m trying to mix my words so yeah so if you get that yeah uh and and in such a short time at Wall
Street you know we’re we’re far exceeded where we are within two years when I was
at what I was anticipating and that’s to do with you know course presentation standards of of green keeping obviously
these things take a while and and to embed in a team but we’re starting to really hit high levels of attention to
detail which I thought would take three four five years and we’ve done it within two years which which is fantastic which
is it’s hard to keep raising the bar now uh can you keep finding one percent I don’t know yeah because we reflect yeah
so you still you can still squeeze them just drop out each time so every day we
learn so we can get better all the time I can get better I can I can improve
myself collectively so I am I’m reading a lot of different books now I’m looking at a lot of different podcasts looking
way out there for inspiration so I can improve as a manager which would help the staff which would help the staff
improve as well so uh it’s important that I really keep developing and and that’s why I do go
and play a lot of golf courses still I do go in there because I’m looking for inspiration I don’t want to be playing all this golf because if I want to be
developing if I can develop and and it helps the team develop yeah
I mean like you say to to to then to almost feel like you know I didn’t think we’d get to this level now and we’ve
achieved it within two years and it’s like okay we’re gonna keep resetting we’re going to keep thinking about how we’re gonna get sharper we’re just gonna
you’re using that process rather than using like maybe more of an external goal that says
okay we’ve now arrived at this point well then it’s quite difficult it’s like okay we’ve now got into top 50 GB and I
or uh we’ve been regarded as the best you know best condition course in Lancashire you know in Tasha or whatever
then it’s harder to move past that way if you keep the same goal as being like we’re just going to constantly get
better at what we do and we’re going to control it is quite refreshing like it’s it’s really different to how I would have
expected you to articulate it um I mean to try and just talk a little
bit about the course by the way I can’t believe we’re sort of 35 minutes or whatever into it 47 minutes into a
podcast uh and we haven’t even talked about stable foot or Bobby Jones but before we go though the course itself I
feel like there’s you know from everything I hear there’s Untold potential out on those Links at the
moment with um what you can do how would you kind of bring some of the core stuff to life
yeah so I’ve been as I say grew up at West Lang so I’ve been playing while she
for for over 20 years so and well see out of all the courses from the
Southport Coast uh up and up into the world it was the one course growing up that I believed to had the most
potential out of all the courses along along the coast and we’re talking obviously the caliber of course is
fantastic but the due land and the the parceland that well she sits on is very special and I
never I never thought the uh the the June land was made the best of we’ve got
a great golf course and it’s it’s great to play but
we’re blessed with an amazing sight you know it’s maxed out on the routine you don’t feel like you’ve got I mean I’m I
mean where we’re sat in this we’re in the committee room right so we sit above the 18th and there’s this wonderful kind
of like rolling Dune scape you can see the 18th of tumbling into the green that’s below the comes into us at near
the bar as far as I can see the land is staggeringly good like you see you then
there’s more that could be done in terms of squeezing it all out of that you know yeah to the show the land’s absolutely
incredible at Wall Street and we’ve made lots of easy wins very quickly we we’ve increased the grain
size by 25 30 so we’ve increased the runoffs by 50 we’ve increased the
Fairway size we’ve given more width we’ve made the roof more playable and that’s all within your gift as course
manager right because one of the things you’re responsible for is the strategy yeah the continual development of the course so that’s not coming top down
you’re just like I just want to increase the playing surface here like let’s make it bigger yeah so there’s a lot of easy
wins and we’ve lost a lot of uh contouring because it was in inch long
grass so we’ve revealed all that and just by it just by looking at the the
the cut lines and the green sizes and uh the runoffs the golf course plays
Incredible already it’s like when I play it I’m like wow I want to be long gone three now all the time because the ball
runs back but before you hit it long on three and you’d stick up on the bank yeah and you’re in heavy grass yeah so
all of a sudden the golf course we’re getting the most out of the golf course as it is now because our court lands
away right and and it’s playable and it’s good fun all the time lines massively overlooked you’d say by a lot
of courses oh hugely yet so the the mower lines and and flow with the golf course so how how the holes flow from
one green to the next tea is huge and oh it’s oh I know yeah the two guys take the piss I
mean like I think you listen to the podcast sometimes and it’s like the guys take the piss because I’ll be like oh I love a transition but it is great when
everything’s tied in because there’s a feeling of Continuum through the golf course I think over the last 50 years it’s
evolved into this world of I play this hole and then I want to play the next hole feeling like it’s a complete
separate Enclave to to what I’ve played before and it’s like no no you want it to feel like a Continuum right yeah and
that’s where again that’s one thing that Holly likes being a you know uh of the last 15 20 years their transitions are
fantastic amazing so again poof calls were fantastic there you can see them where they’ve been working a lot on that
and that’s what that’s what we’re trying to do here now which improving transitions improving
flow in improving contour and there’s some unbelievable contour and that was lost through scrub through uh to
generate Woodlands uh so we’ve cleared a lot of the degenerate Woodlands off the course
yeah so we’ve cleared a lot of Dunes that were uh health and safety risk that
come to the end of their life cycle and we’ve opened up Dunes that people never knew existed and we’re talking 50 60
foot Tunes so the site all of a sudden we’re ripping it back to how it how it
originally was with no scrub uh no trees uh lovely flowing walkways big green
surrounds massive Fairways uh so really they’re that they’re the sort of hall there’s sort of like the calling
cards of great 21st century architecture and great Golden Age architecture yeah it’s all kind of Gone full circle right
so in two years we we’ve stripped the course back and it’s made an incredible difference it almost feels like you play
in a different golf course but fundamentally it’s again it’s brilliant Basics almost you know
it’s basic stuff but it’s just getting the basics right so we’re now at a point where we’ve got the basics right we’re
at a good place now and and now we’ve engaged with Clayton DeVries and pornstar architect so for me it was
important to get the basics right let’s get the fundamentals right and and that’s what we’ve done over the
last two years and it’s come to the point now where we need to progress the links further so I was happy to know do
grass Pathways put new T’s in level T’s uh re-contour some bunkers but
it’s bigger we’re thinking now and to be able to do that we need to partner with some you know like-minded people and and
Clayton to respond to uh being appointed as our Architects and and we’re looking
to develop the course further now what can you share around that so uh again
the the site is sure is so good at well see that it’s almost uh people use the
the phrase and embarrassments are rich as well she’s just got an embarrassment to Richardson
paintings so what we’re looking at now is uh again
we’re looking to get the basics right we’re looking at uh bunker design bunker style you know is Reverend for us do we
want to naturalize our bunkers our Fairway bunkers our green side to have a more uh natural look to the June scape
uh we’re looking at improving flow improving green surrounds uh and then
there’s some bigger picture one thing world so that letter down as the practice facilities so we’re looking
there do we need to relocate holes we’re looking at potentially rebuilding two
three holes in land that’s presently not used uh so we’ve been working on on a
lot of the development over the last year and and we’ll be sharing the the plans with the membership hopefully
before Christmas this year so there’s lots of opportunities for Wallace it
just depends on on how ambitious the membership is for change Apple a driving factory is the practice
facilities are rarely fit for purpose so if we want to move into the next 100 years and be at the Forefront of some
amateur golf we’re going to have to make some changes and that’s not been unusual
for Elsie whilst you’re out of any course in the country is developed and and reinvented itself more than any so I
think it’s a case of the club being strong and my view is leaving it in a better place than we found it I mean it
feels like there’s there’s obviously quite a few changes of foot with the course you know the the involvement of
CDP and obviously Frank Pont regular so this podcast will be bored of hearing but you know Frank ponds had an enormous
you know impact on Blackwell you know just by kind of bringing back some of the Simpson Fowler stuff that we’ve had
there um I think um I I guess I don’t want to push too much
on that because I think there’s a lot that’s got to go through the membership and and those plans probably haven’t even been kind of like formulated yet
one thing that we we cannot do a podcast about is is talking about some of the Great
Stuff linked to the history of Wallace and you did a great job in terms of you know narrating some of that with me
downstairs but you know almost feels like Wallace is actually a bit of a mecca for amateur golf in England and
maybe overlooked somewhat because you know two of the Great figures in the in the amateur game have
really significant stories to tell from wallacy don’t they so you know obviously Dr Frank stableford with the you know
with with finding his his scoring system you know really I think um Joe Pennington a royal Liverpool coined the
phrase that he’d saved the amateur golfer but he kind of did really absolutely yeah it’s like that’s that’s
like that’s like every Hammer to golfers like best friend now exactly yeah
um and obviously the Bobby Jones stuff so you’ve got like obviously the paintings downstairs the Jones one in
particular you know I knew you guys had had it but then seeing the signature and everything on there I was like oh my God
yeah this is amazing so yeah well see it’s uh
going back for it it’s it’s been a club over the last 130 years where because
the the dunes were mobile it was close to folding two or three
times but in its history and the committee and people associated with the club have made some of the toughest
decisions that committee members would have to choose but we’re now blessed with the course now because of that but
the likes of Bobby Jones qualifying for the open in 1930 1932 the the stableford system and it’s
strange because 30 years earlier Frank Stapleford and this is relatively you know well
known with a lot of the historians had tried to stable for the system 30 years
earlier but it it happened well it was it wasn’t the same format it is used and
it was he implied to point system after the round was finished okay so it was
nowhere near the same system but it was almost he never ever talked about the 30 years
prior because I think it wasn’t well respect it wasn’t well received he didn’t kind of go off the ground
it’s the fact that it allows humans to park it on the green doesn’t it I think that’s the beauty of stable fed is the
fact that you can have an absolute disaster but you can then Park that before you hit
the exactly and then the the beauty of it while she is in 1932 when you know 30
years prior he you know he never even talked about that because it was a different system it was it was a point
system that was played that was added to this the scorecard after the round so to speak uh
the the the the he obviously was the second hold into prevailing ones a really tough hole and it’s notorious for
people ripping the score cards up and at this point he probably ripped another scorecards up in the May of 92 and it
said right we’ve got to find a better a better idea and it’s attachment to them while she remembers that they then crowd
the system where obviously you you you do the point system as you’re playing it in round uh and they loved it and if the
members of Worlds he hadn’t you know unanimously love the system it would never have got off the ground it just it
would have may have been another Joe who knows we’re just guessing but uh
it’s a testament that they were brave enough to use a different scoring system
when back then it would have been so strange and abnormal to to go to it just
it just shows what impact they’ve had because they were brave enough to try different stuff and also I’d be mad to
think how that thing sort of scaled like you know it’s so commonplace to play that now but there’s loads of little
formats people make up and play with their friends but they don’t become a global globally recognized I mean it
fundamentally underpins the world handicapping system now exactly yeah that’s it yes like how did that I’ve
actually become a thing where you know obviously and it’s a weird time it’s like early 30s you’ve kind of got only
about seven more years before everything kind of grinds to a halt anyway for six years yeah so it must have had some sort
of like some really early and fast success I mean like you know I I don’t
know it off the top of my head but I suppose those first 10 years of the stable food system would be quite interesting to understand because it
must have gone viral for it to reach the levels that buy you know kind of by the
60s 70s 80s Club golf kind of revolves around Stables the system that’s quiet it’s quite strange when you think about
it yeah anyway we digress and and obviously Mr Frank Stapleton was a past captain and obviously engrossed in in
the town he was a local GP and so it’s just a lovely story and yeah and if if
the welshie members wouldn’t have unanimous unanimously enjoyed it and backed it then it wouldn’t have carried
on so obviously that’s where uh framed to be the home of stableford didn’t rightly show yeah and you’ve obviously
got that wall which on the one side you’ve got the stone for painting and on the other you’ve got that that original drawing of Bobby Jones which you know is
famously replicated and but and you know Butler’s Cabin and you know Royal Liverpool and stuff it’s an incredible
incredible story um John I’ve really enjoyed that I sense you might be a three-peat on the Pod
because I feel like there’s probably another podcast in this next year when there’s some more stuff happening with the course but
um yeah really good really good part the stuff about the the team building and the green stuff and the brilliant Basics
it’s like you know people are going to latch on to that there’s going to be people ringing you up left right and
center now of every Faith trying to trying to get some secret sauce out of you but um it’s really interesting here and you
unpack it so thanks so much that was really good yeah cheers
you feeling yeah uh privileged yeah but joy I obviously wasn’t there since the
first time we’ve met properly and uh you’re up at the open at St Andrews and spent some time chatting to Tom were
you up in the stands or something like that yeah no I’d met Tom uh a couple of times before we’d actually gone temp in
Bowling oh yeah when he was up at Holy lake so uh
we just bumped into each other at the open uh on the Monday I think it was when they did the sort of the ceremony
where the the all the greats come back and played so we were having a chat and
Tom said geez the chat we’re having now is too good for this we need to do a
podcast because it’s really interesting that and it’s really cool chat so he said let’s go on the stands we went on
the stand on the second tee and there was just the two of us and and away we went and beautiful and I thought it was
in the stand somewhere good week that did you yeah it was amazing yeah it got a little I went for the practice days uh
and it was rammed then so Saint Andrews is one that you want to go
to just because it’s so special but come tournament days watching golf is
difficult so went and watched uh the the four days from your own home and that was nice actually yeah yeah nice good
stuff um well firstly big thank you because I think uh you’ve squeezed us into a
fairly hectic golfing schedule I’m I’m sort of lucky to find you not on the golf course playing I believe yeah
that’s what my wife says as well yeah are you in a minority of
people that work you know should say Obviously course manager here at wallacy first time I’ve been here are you in the
minority of guys in the business who absolutely are desperate to go and play it a second notice uh there is a lot of
really Keen golfers but there’s no uh there’s no middle
ground really you get some guys who aren’t interested and you get some guys who love playing in our in our team
specifically in our green staff but we’ve got a scratch team it’s that good the standard of golf is so good you’re
just in your team just in our team yeah incredible yet so we’ve got uh
the collective handicap of six or seven of us will probably
would be a plus handicap yeah your team of green Keepers here at Wallace is com
as a collective handicap in plus digits collectively I’d say almost yet that’s
incredible yet so we’ve uh we’ve got some really good golfers on the team and there’s three of us going to play next
week in the national championship so is that an anvil I believe I am really yeah so that’s next week’s show
but some of the best course managers I know uh and some of the you know the
people that I’ve always looked up to they don’t they’re not interesting golf so there’s no Rhyme or Reason but it’s
one of the things that uh I feel really lucky about my job is I’ve
connected with people you know we we spend time meeting like-minded people so
an offset of that is I get to play a lot of golf courses for free on the basis of
knowing so many people so I wouldn’t say I take advantage of that but it’s it’s a nice it’s a nice thing to have yet I’ve
obviously worked in the golf industry for 25 years or built up a lot of friends within the industry so we get a
lot of visitors at what we’ll see and and I get hosted a lot of courses and and
and it is certainly a pack of the job for me it’s one of the things that I love that I can see the other week I
went up to rope of call and played with Ian Kinley and looked rounds and that was incredible yeah we were talking
about this before so that was brilliant so it just you know raindrop stuff and and fitted as in
which was great and we brought a lot of as a friend so that’s nice how much because we’re going to get into some
stuff about Wallace and stuff shortly but how much do you feel you could be at a disadvantage doing what you do without
an appreciation for how the game is played and I don’t I’m not trying to that’s maybe deliberately provocative
but you know Tom Doak not not an enormous golfer in himself you know plays but not it’s not that it’s not the
sole purpose so I’m sensing maybe not but is there a massive disadvantage to
doing what you do without playing golf so my train of thought is you know some of the best green Keepers haven’t played
golf but for me the one thing that I feel is a is a benefit to me is when I
walk across golf greens generally and I’m not playing golf I’ve got to feel whether the fam whether
they’re soft what you know how receptive they are and you get a feel free but
nothing beats hitting the ball into a green and and feeling how the ball reacts and if you don’t play golf that’s
the one thing I think you you miss out of so I can I can go to a course and
Inland course a lynx course and if I hit a 56 degree from 100 yards
there’s a way that reacts to How firm the greens are and just walking on them doesn’t really tell you exactly yeah
put it there’s so much you can do with the you know plague and yeah and all that stuff and we do do a lot of data
collection here at well she’s so part of our thing is we we we do uh data every
single day as if we’re hosting a major championship every day at Walter so that’s part of our routine so
but we’re very data driven but also I’m very we’re 50 data scientifically and 50
artists and how we operate and I think golf the way I play is obviously very
data driven and want to know the how the green speeds are and the rest of it but it’s a feel elements there’s that
Artistry of playing and getting out there and and so that’s where I stand on it right
yeah and I guess there’s little things like you know an understanding of how Contours will react and produce different shots around the room which to
a non-golfer is quite hard to picture because we’ve all been in loads of different situations so you’ve kind of had loads of stuff to draw on take me
back to the beginning in your career because when we we sort of dance through it when we were having a sandwich downstairs and a drink but it was gold
that was coming out you’ve worked in the industry for ages but you’ve got a really interesting sort of path that gets you to here I feel anyway so where
did it start and when you first said job in the industry came up yeah so I’ve been in the golf industry for 20 25
years now uh in different for in different forms so from the age of 16 uh
I was I was pretty decent to football as well and I had the choice of really pursuing football or or really
pursuing golf and appetite preferred the individual aspect
of golf so I sort of put my the football on the back seat and really pursued Golf
and I got to streams of playing professionally maybe golf yeah when I
was 16 17 yeah so it was sort of uh you know can I have a go with football and
try and make it as a professional footballer or do a try and make it as a golfer uh so I think I had one season
maybe where I played a lot of amateur golf and didn’t wear much but my potent was generally way too streaky
so I’d play I’ve played with a lot of the top players and a lot of the guys on the tour now and
I was generally averaging four to five puts around more than more than these guys the Striking of the ball wasn’t too
dissimilar but over a four round tournament having 20 shots 20 shots yet so that’s a significant Delta I think I
remember playing with Dave horse or Formby uh and I think our scores were very very
similar uh I think I beat him in the morning he beat me in the afternoon striking of the
world was very very similar but he just ported me off the park you know everything he looked at either wenon or
didn’t go in and I had five more puts than in both rounds so I will be scored some level
from that point I was like this isn’t I’m not going to be a golfer my potent isn’t isn’t up to where it should be and
it’s not going to be rarely so when by the time I was 18 19 I was
thinking I do want to stay in golf uh I love golf and and that’s all that sort of the last five from 16 to sort of 20.
I’d always you know golfer being the main focus so there was a course at my school through
Central Lancashire golf course management with an Agronomy element but it looked at like the history of golf
and golf course architectures so uh I carried out that coach not really thinking I was going to be a green
keeper or a course manager but I just wanted to do yeah yeah so it you know it was a university course and stuff and
not that I was overly academic but it was something you know to carry on so so
rarely enjoyed the course and then from that I did a a placement at Gleneagles
green keeping on on the golf Awards scheme they used to take six seven green Keepers or trainee green Keepers or
college students every year to do and like an award scheme they used to you know say they’d pick the six seven top
students throughout the country it was quite a big prestigious thing and a lot of the people that went on the awards
scheme of Glenn Eagles are doing amazing in the industry now there’s a lot of top people that have come from that program
is that just the Excellence and the standards they have there yeah so yeah this this I think they probably
stopped the program 15 16 years ago but for 10 years they were bringing six to seven six or
seven of the best students to Glen Eagles to work so they probably had 60 to 80 students that went through that
program uh and so uh started me green keeping at
Glen Eagles and I loved it and it was like wow this this is brilliant I actually really really enjoy yeah the
screen keeping so went went back to Central Lancashire in my school finished my college and stuff and then uh
I had so at that point I had my qualifications what could cause a pastor had some really good experience sort of
18 months of Glenn Eagles uh behind me and then back into the
opportunity to travel then so I for the next 10 years I pretty much traveled non-stop around the world yet so I was I
was just doing like little short term assignments so there was some short-term assignments and and some of it I was working on the ladies tour in the
European tours as an official and mainly with as a scoring uh official so I go
around and set up the scoring systems and but I did some media so salaam cup I
was a press officer and different stuff at this point it had a lot of connections within the industry one from
working at Glen Eagles and and then working on the tour so that allowed me to really travel so
it went out to Australia so we did two I went to Australia four years on the run
so I worked at Rome Melbourne uh worked at the Australian golf club for the
Australian Open uh and then from there went to uh America and did a lot of
traveling in America and support it Riviera Country Club and then when I was
there I’d spent a day with the superintendent at La Country Club and had traveled around so went over to
Canada stayed in Canada for a while so me travels took me around and and while
I was doing all this I was working on the tour as well which was great so if I if I was home in the summer I would be
uh I’d be all over Scandinavia and Switzerland and I’d go to Holland and
work and I’d go and play Canada because it was me after that so so I was very fortunate that I was just engrossed with
golf uh and because I had a background in green keepment I could get rolls of different
clubs and and it allowed me to travel uh so
just don’t know I was raw Melbourne like you touched it was incredible I can’t sort of skipped by that that’s just got
to be so Rome album was another one where each the always I suppose they haven’t hosted as many tournaments in
recent years obviously they’ve had the president’s gone but back back 15 20 years ago they would have a European
Tour event most years so they would take on again this similar six six International staff every summer
to work to help stage the event so again the staff that have come through
that’s sort of torn and prep work at Rome Melbourne is incredible he’s got
these guys have gone to run all the top courses in the world so I was one of the the six I think 2003 that that did the
tournament set up for the Heineken classic which any else went on to win but they used to let the staff play golf
so yes you you had to ask the superintendent but there was there was four of us who were really into our goal
so I spent a summer playing Royal Melbourne every night it was incredible what was it about working with raw
Melvin that really attracted you to John yeah it was the freaky yeah it was the worst in the ease it was free golf at
rule ma’am it was incredible so so we spent the summer uh which was our winter time there’s so
much so so from December to March April playing golf at Royal Melbourne and then
because I was a half decent golfer there was a lot of you know the amateur circuit in uh
in around the Melbourne is great so I went and played in some of the amateurs yeah some of that sort of stuff so it
was fantastic got to play Kingston Heath got all that stuff Metropolitan got to
play all the top courses what was your favorite is it raw Melbourne well Rome album was amazing and uh it was an
experience but Metropolitan blew me mind yeah really yeah not uh I suppose at
that point the condition was so good that it was rumored to have the best Fairways in the world the fairways at
Metropolitan they had a world golf championship event there a couple years before and I think all the players were
like these are the best Fairways we’ve ever played off they’re almost like greens and it gets very little play
Metropolitan so and all on those sambal courses they take the trolley through the greens
when you look at the Agronomy out there what is it that makes that is is the ground kind of like the defining feature
in the sand belt stuff would you say because they tend enter I’ve never played any of those courses but they
seem to be a big promotion of width there’s almost no long grass out there they have these bunkers that almost look
like they’re sort of propping the greens up they’re so sheer the edges of the bunkers it looks like it’s a completely
different type of land to anything you see anywhere else in the world but yeah so the land is sort of heathlandy in in
in aspect but the unique thing about the sand belt in in Melbourne is it’s the
soil structure so the soil structure is like no other so it the soil structure
in the sand belt compacts and I don’t know what it is it was probably it could
have been a a nice a nice and a glacier shift where it picks sediment up and
moved and dropped it over we’re talking Ice Age movement but the soil structure in the sand belt is unique to anywhere
which allows them to almost have these sheer faces on bunkers so the degree of
the drains still really well yeah because it it’s it’s a Sandy sort of Dusty material but compact so that’s
where people try and replicate these bunkers where they have the Green Run Straight Into the Bunker and it’s very
steep but on the nature of this the soil structure can hold that if you try to do
that anywhere else in the world the soil structure would just cave in and collapse Parkland courses in Britain it’s not recommended it just it just
doesn’t work so the the blessed with the soil structure and the soil structure it
still drains and it’s extremely firm so the conditions the grass or the the
grasses that grow out there obviously it’s very warm and dry in the summer it can dry down and create really fam
surfaces right so if if the soil structure wasn’t able to
compact like it is the sand belt would be wouldn’t be the sound belt no no no so but a lot of people wouldn’t know
that they just think oh they build the bunkers like that because yeah I mean obviously there’s a festival of McKenzie
stuff exactly yeah but the ground is what makes it so good which you know I think you can yeah yeah we obviously sat
above the the 18th green here at wallacy play a lot of Links Golf ourselves you know the way the course plays on the
ground is so pivotal to to the result you get right I mean an amazing experience earlier this year playing
Paul Monarch which is you know almost exclusively Fescue it’s really firm as a result and then another dimension comes
out in the course and it sounds like something similar there you did a little bit in the west coast as well so you mentioned Riv and LACC and stuff like
that was there any kind of you know our our local listeners here will sense that you’ve moved back not too far from home
obviously being a liver pudlian there was some possibility of staying out in America or being further yeah so I uh to
spend some time out in uh in LA and and I traveled there before another couple
of another friends out there so uh there was a chance of me then maybe doing sort
of an internship at La Country Club but it I on my travels to and from uh
Australia America I met my wife who have now been married to for 11 years so that
sort of uh she’s been looking through it for 11 years as well exactly yeah of course all that time so she was used to
me traveling uh luckily so uh I met my wife and she was from Liverpool uh I was
still to and from Australia at that point she did come out to Australia and spend a little bit of time with me uh
but I come back to Liverpool uh which I thought I’ll come back for six
seven months and then I I I’ll be going back traveling and it it didn’t happen at that point you know I’ve been
traveling and a lot and at that point I was you know late 20s and
sort of uh I went I went to Grange Park in St towns because my friend was course manager I only went to help Mel for
three weeks and I ended up there for 10 years at this point so that was sort of how things Destiny to how things change
I absolutely love Liverpool the city’s been on the massive up since
2000 to the early 2000s so uh come back home was actually quite nice and
obviously the golf in the area is so good I was you know I was a member of West Langston was there for 25 years so
I was getting to play all the golf courses in in Southport yeah
roller coaster so being at westlinks you know the scratch League that westland’s
playing in and the south Portland District is immense you spent all winter playing Hillside better for me so it
wasn’t a hardship to come back and relocate to Liverpool because again I was still a key in golfer and the golf’s
just phenomenal as well everyone to the standards amazing yeah really good it’s
uh so from what I thought would be a short
spell I ended up uh a Grange Park for 10 years and I was I
ended up sort of as Deputy course manager there for the last four or five years I was there
but luckily on my travels I wasn’t really looking at Agronomy too heavily I
was I was looking at culture and team culturing how teams developed and how the superintendent managed and set up
them teams on a daily basis so uh I was very fortunate to to witness some of the
you know the most elite golf operations in the world so where impressed you the most well were you like I genuinely
did not think you could run an operation that well where you were like yeah so there was like so there’s different
aspects of every area for the Nissan open were re some of this might make a
lot of sense but they were re-spinning the units up and sharpening them every single night that makes it sense which
yeah so it wouldn’t make sense but it’s just fairly you know it’s pretty incredible
so the units that cut the grass the the mower blades you know they have to be super sharp for to really perform well
so they’ll tune them every night so just get they were doing them every night so yeah every night which is which is just
pretty crazy really so we you know most clubs will be doing them every two three months and they’ve been doing them every
single night even you know I think when I’ve worked the open and and the rides a cup and everything they would do them
the week before and they’d be super sharp but then they wouldn’t do them because they wouldn’t do the make unless they nicked a stone or they wouldn’t but
they would do them every night it was like wow this is but you’ve never seen anything sharp it was incredible uh so
there was the idea was I was pinching the best bits from everywhere
uh you know he worked the rides a couple of gun Eagles went back there in 2014 was it uh
and you know how how the superintendent delivered the debriefs of the Moon and
how you know the provides of pastries and coffee and how they were fed and or or if they were doing uh uh education
during the tournaments during the downtime so I wouldn’t say there was any you know every single place I’d pick up you know
the one percent yeah yeah and but collectively over all them places you know I had a pretty Clear Vision on what
it would take to get somewhere to an elite level so that I mean that’s one of my questions is you know to
to get a course to an elite level is it the marginal gains is it those kind of little two percenters is it is it about
you know I mean I I can you like I said to you how big a difference is the equipment you’re using and you’re like
yeah that’s like enormous I mean I take it for someone who’s just got a complete idiot’s guide here to to Green keeping
what are the absolute what are the kind of like core components good kit what a fairly efficient work work rotor and
kind of how you manage the task because I’m guessing you can kind of just burn energy not not getting much done what
are the kind of key ingredients so the role of sort of uh of a course manager
is is relatively substantial and a lot of this isn’t seen so a lot of the time
you operate in the half a million 700 000 pound Fleet of Machinery uh which is
huge and and having the right kit to do the job efficiently is is critical as
well so one of the first things that I’ve done when I come to Wallace I analyze just every bit of kit for every
role that it that it did on on the course and it was very uh it come to uh
like very quickly that we didn’t have the kit on the Machinery to set the course about an elite level is that just
because it’s like worn or like yeah a lot of the a lot of the material a lot
of the equipment was starting to age but how we operate
I could take you down 100 rabbit holes
so yeah so the the way we operate is we we have
a five hour window where we set the course up to tournament standard every single morning so we need every bit of
Kit to be able to complete its task in five hours so our roof need to be able to be caught in five hours our Fairways
need to be able to be caught in five hours our aprons are greens everything we do so that allows us to turn them and
set up the course every single day I’m not going to take longer than five hours so and you’ve sort of defined that
you’ve like well I want to be able to know that I can just get everything on point in that time yeah so in in the open that there are our five hour window
for us because they’ve got half 60 time in the open so that they will be starting on the course the staff around
four-ish and they’ve got a two-hour window so they would have to have 12 Fairway mowers to cut in two and a half
hours so because our first tea time is seven o’clock and we’re in a half five we know we need we set up base our
operation on we can keep heads of golf as if the first group was the open yeah and so we need a five-hour window able
to be able to fully cut the course so we needed to invest in kit to allow us to do that so we made a significant
investment uh in Machinery at whilst you and I started to allow us to turn and set up the
course every day so that meant from it we had one fairway mower that used to
take 10 hours to cut the fairways so that that would mean you know it was spread over two days uh if they wanted
to cut all the fairways you know they were within golf cutting Fairways so we got two which took it down to five hours
so my operation would only really work if we were able to buy two Fairway Motors so that’s what we’ve done so that
the Machinery is a huge aspect of being able to present the course at an elite level and then from there which is
obviously the most important thing is staff so you need the right amount of staff with the right kit and you need
the staff to be inspired and developed to be able to to be able to produce the standard that’s quite a big mix though right
because I think you know we were talking about jobs in the green keeping industry weren’t we a little bit earlier but
you know it is that is it as an attractive career route now as it maybe was 20 years ago I
don’t know I mean you know is there are there more jobs out there is it harder to find good people what’s the
sense yeah so the most difficult thing now in in the golf industry as a whole is is recruitments and recruiting staff
there’s just there’s not that there’s not the people coming through for for the jobs and a lot of green keeping it
seemed to be quite unsociable now you’ve got to work weekends you know our staff come in at 5am every weekend Saturday
and Sunday you know it takes you know they’re up at four or four uh that we
start at between five and a half five all summer so again you’re up at four half four uh
so it’s not that the the hours are relatively unsocial so it’s not that attractive although I see it is
brilliant please finish at one o’clock yeah a lot of our
stuff half one every day in this in the summer so it’s it’s how you look at it but I’m very much uh
glass half full so um I’m really positive that you know we we’ve got a fantastic team at Welsh
incredible green stuff if you invest in them and and you pay well and uh look
after staff then there’s still club’s doing very well yeah so it’s like this
the fittest survived so to speak so we are you know that there’s a big push now to try and get our staff on more money
to you know to retain them because we have lost staff in the last two years to go to factories to go to other
careers because it pays five grand more yeah and money is obviously you know
makes the world go around leadership’s kind of a little bit undervalued I know that’s like your sort of you know that’s
your big thing right is how do I lead a team like you know we’re recording this podcast we should say you know you’ve
got a management meeting and you’re like I’m gonna send one of my guys into her because it’s just about development is
that overlooked in the industry a little bit so basically all the uh
all the green keeping qualifications and and entry level into green keeping and
even as you as you move up to higher level green keeping at no point is management or development staff or HR or
or any of this is you don’t do any schooling or college work or any
anything at all to do with how to develop and manage staff there’s 15 staff at Wellesley that I
need to manage managing the team is ultimately the hardest job uh the golf course is the easy bit and there is a
massive black hole in the industry where course managers and and head green Keepers haven’t been given the skill set
to manage people do they so the the you get a lot of people that have you know worked of course for 20 years and has
just naturally progressed because you know they they’ve been the next day yeah and they could be very good green
keepers are very knowledgeable but and it’s not their fault there’s been no Pathway to educate for management and
and Leadership so and again I was lucky to travel around but I’m very passionate
about leadership and team culture and how to build elite team culture so I suppose that goes from me football and
days and and all the rest of it so for for 20 years I self-educated me read
a lot of books listened to a lot of podcasts and a lot of research when a met leads us in different Industries and
fields which I then could bring to the course management industry because there’s elements of things like Clive
wood whether you can just drag and drop it right it’s like so oh we got uniform
that’s just on point and makes us feel better yeah absolutely and then it’s like okay now look the part I play the
part you know so yeah there’s a lot there’s there’s a there’s a lot of collab with stuff that that we mirror uh
that that I that I look at David bears for two is obviously the cycling coach he talked about the one percent rule so
we uh blood transfusions down in the green keeper sheds all sorts going on yeah
so so we uh so yeah so this is sort of what I sort of geek out on is a lot of
these you know the management and developing people and how to create a high performance team with it within
within specifically within green keeping yeah uh and within I’ve been at Wall Street uh two
years in November and we we we’ve had the team working at a really high level all year obviously the you know the
nature of the best is we are working to develop each other all the time so when we’re no way a finished article but you
know the daily standards we produce is fantastic and it’s brilliant Basics so we’re you know we’re we’re empowering
people to to work at the highest level for them he’s like you’ve never heard a course manager talk like that and with
that and this I say that in a good way but it’s like you just reeled off stuff there that could have come straight out
of an Accenture or a McKinsey corporate world and it’s like the the principles
apply brilliant Bass text you know all that kind of like elite team culture you should never hear you know it’s first
time I’ve heard people talk about you know their teams in that way in this industry it’s just something that’s
overlooked it’s just yeah it’s been so powerful yet so obviously we we have a
thing where no staff works with Ben and you know no staff works with birds with bed and yet so you don’t go out on the
course and and work if you’ve got issues you know because so
what do you think so that’s one of them so you have like a number of things like can you share the secret sauce here
uh like what are your sort of like pivotal things then so one of those is no staff works with a burden yeah so
that that so that would be our daily habit so again not to go down too many rabbit
holes we have a structure where we have we have a vision and and the vision is
to uh highly perform every day and and positive positively impact the industry
so we have a vision where everything we do on a daily basis would positively impact the industry so if anyone comes
in to copy or any of our staff will go to elsewhere they will be able to positively impact the industry which is
quite powerful so we have a vision where we’re not saying we’re going to be industry leaders or we are industry
leaders we just have a vision to positively impact yeah which is more powerful uh than saying we’re going to
be the best maintained course in the world or we’re going to be the best because we’re never going to be the best you can’t control
but we can control positively impacting then we have uh then we have
non-negotiable values so we’ve got a list of values that people have to sign up to when they join the team so uh
trust Integrity uh
so I don’t really have to manage that everyone manages that because the whole episode
yeah to everyone start sloping off early to go work on a short game or whatever everyone stands up to the the
non-negotiables and and that’s collectively as a team uh so if anyone
was to overstep the land then it would be very obvious and evident including myself because I I uphold the same as
everyone else then we have then we have Collective values so we have values collectively which which the team
decided on so okay I’m the boss but collectively depending on what time the staff want to start how how we
communicate How We Do appraisals how we uh
how we structure the day a lot of a lot of this is collectively so we only we
only work collectively so as a team it’s not just me everyone’s empowered to to make choices a choice and be part of the
overall picture of the team so uh so so that’s great so the the collective
values are really important and we have pillars that we we aspire to uh
which is excellence and passion integrity and then something that I’ve
been working on more recently is daily habits so this is this is something that’s relatively new and that I’ve
created within within our within our team so the idea is uh
we nail the basics every single day and that and that includes daily habits so
everything we everything we do is relatively basic we’re not we’re not
we’re not doing anything extraordinary but you’re doing well yeah we’re brilliant you just cut a hole so when we
cut a hole there’s only one way to do that and all 10 people in the team know exactly the same and that’s and that’s
this is not exactly where this is exactly where they put the box so they cut so uh you know if we do course set
up and how they land the T markers up the tea markers have got to be eight behind most Stripes every single time so
it’s easy to do but obviously to have the basics pair pair perfect is is difficult yeah so it’s a matter of like
discipline yeah it’s around things that are like you say if you’re stripping back to a really pure form they’ve quite
basic things lower t-box and put the teas in nine 99 of golf courses out
there just mow the tea box in any direction or however they want to do it and they put the tea markers down yeah
and if they point in the right direction that’s a bonus but you’re like that is a discipline I want that done yeah than
anything because we can control that we can control that so so the basics so we do data collection every morning where
we collect the greens we stimp the greens we rank the greens we look at the moisture level it takes half an hour we do that every morning it’s it’s
basically how many clubs do that sort of stuff daily um for tournaments set up the wood but
for daily General clubs like this you wouldn’t do a daily stint readers would
you a wet December and the world people are but it’s Basics isn’t they just do it it’s like it’s pouring down
yeah it’s brilliant basic so everything we do is very easy to do strip down but
it means no one would I’m not saying everyone works without
being 100 all the time because that’s impossible but what we do is our philosophy is to work without bed and so
if you’ve got an issue you know we we discuss it before you go out on the course because if you see if if you’re driving around
on the course and you see a piece of litter if you’ve got bed and you’re not going to pick that letter up if you if
you if if you see letter but you are in a bit of a mood because someone’s been
off with you that morning and you’re gonna go oh I’m going to leave that letter so you want them to leave that back of the green keeper shed yeah so so
once once once we start on the course and have our have our debrief which takes half an hour and this is all about
reflectively and so so uh we reflect every single day on our
performances then try and be one percent better than yesterday reflectively so how’d you do that
Keepers together to reflect on they have to they talk through their jobs in in
minute detail every single day so we learn collectively so once once once we
give me an example can I put you under the go give me an example of something you’ve done today wait how you would how would you reflect on that for that one
percent uh I don’t know for instance this morning we were uh
we reflected on yesterday so the fairways uh reverted range yesterday so
there’s one guy with with the the crew with 80 grading so he would talk and stringent detail of what they went on
the course so they did the 18th first then they did the second path then they did the third Freer they did the 45th so
it’s in very very detail and so we would reflect on it could he have done that better could he have done hole seven
before six but as a collective so the guy whoever was cutting teas yesterday
would go through he could teasing and the order he went in and and collectively we try and see if we could do that better was there anything that
they could have done better on that route so we reflect on that every single day so this is a lot of stuff where
you know I’m developing and it’s organically growing and it’s philosophies which I now should be sort
of uh internationally about these philosophies so again I’m speaking I’m speaking at uh
Villa Park in November for bigger and we’re talking about managing construction structuring uh Team so this
is but it all comes down to the the the the Crux of it is is doing things
consistently every day to an elite level which is actually basic yeah
honestly it is infectious to listen to that sort of stuff like that’s mental and then the other the
other sort of pathway that is so we don’t we don’t have a goal we don’t have a goal we’re not like we’re we’re better
than holy Lake we’re better than Westlands we’re not orientated around course rankings so although I’m on run
competence that’s irrelevant we don’t have goals we’re not looking we have we have uh oh all we’re looking
at is doing the right things properly every single day and collectively so when
you’ve got 10 15 people working to the best of their ability the sum of all
that’s part is greater than the than of course then uh the output is greater than almost the
input I’m trying to mix my words so yeah so if you get that yeah uh and and in such a short time at Wall
Street you know we’re we’re far exceeded where we are within two years when I was
at what I was anticipating and that’s to do with you know course presentation standards of of green keeping obviously
these things take a while and and to embed in a team but we’re starting to really hit high levels of attention to
detail which I thought would take three four five years and we’ve done it within two years which which is fantastic which
is it’s hard to keep raising the bar now uh can you keep finding one percent I don’t know yeah because we reflect yeah
so you still you can still squeeze them just drop out each time so every day we
learn so we can get better all the time I can get better I can I can improve
myself collectively so I am I’m reading a lot of different books now I’m looking at a lot of different podcasts looking
way out there for inspiration so I can improve as a manager which would help the staff which would help the staff
improve as well so uh it’s important that I really keep developing and and that’s why I do go
and play a lot of golf courses still I do go in there because I’m looking for inspiration I don’t want to be playing all this golf because if I want to be
developing if I can develop and and it helps the team develop yeah
I mean like you say to to to then to almost feel like you know I didn’t think we’d get to this level now and we’ve
achieved it within two years and it’s like okay we’re gonna keep resetting we’re going to keep thinking about how we’re gonna get sharper we’re just gonna
you’re using that process rather than using like maybe more of an external goal that says
okay we’ve now arrived at this point well then it’s quite difficult it’s like okay we’ve now got into top 50 GB and I
or uh we’ve been regarded as the best you know best condition course in Lancashire you know in Tasha or whatever
then it’s harder to move past that way if you keep the same goal as being like we’re just going to constantly get
better at what we do and we’re going to control it is quite refreshing like it’s it’s really different to how I would have
expected you to articulate it um I mean to try and just talk a little
bit about the course by the way I can’t believe we’re sort of 35 minutes or whatever into it 47 minutes into a
podcast uh and we haven’t even talked about stable foot or Bobby Jones but before we go though the course itself I
feel like there’s you know from everything I hear there’s Untold potential out on those Links at the
moment with um what you can do how would you kind of bring some of the core stuff to life
yeah so I’ve been as I say grew up at West Lang so I’ve been playing while she
for for over 20 years so and well see out of all the courses from the
Southport Coast uh up and up into the world it was the one course growing up that I believed to had the most
potential out of all the courses along along the coast and we’re talking obviously the caliber of course is
fantastic but the due land and the the parceland that well she sits on is very special and I
never I never thought the uh the the June land was made the best of we’ve got
a great golf course and it’s it’s great to play but
we’re blessed with an amazing sight you know it’s maxed out on the routine you don’t feel like you’ve got I mean I’m I
mean where we’re sat in this we’re in the committee room right so we sit above the 18th and there’s this wonderful kind
of like rolling Dune scape you can see the 18th of tumbling into the green that’s below the comes into us at near
the bar as far as I can see the land is staggeringly good like you see you then
there’s more that could be done in terms of squeezing it all out of that you know yeah to the show the land’s absolutely
incredible at Wall Street and we’ve made lots of easy wins very quickly we we’ve increased the grain
size by 25 30 so we’ve increased the runoffs by 50 we’ve increased the
Fairway size we’ve given more width we’ve made the roof more playable and that’s all within your gift as course
manager right because one of the things you’re responsible for is the strategy yeah the continual development of the course so that’s not coming top down
you’re just like I just want to increase the playing surface here like let’s make it bigger yeah so there’s a lot of easy
wins and we’ve lost a lot of uh contouring because it was in inch long
grass so we’ve revealed all that and just by it just by looking at the the
the cut lines and the green sizes and uh the runoffs the golf course plays
Incredible already it’s like when I play it I’m like wow I want to be long gone three now all the time because the ball
runs back but before you hit it long on three and you’d stick up on the bank yeah and you’re in heavy grass yeah so
all of a sudden the golf course we’re getting the most out of the golf course as it is now because our court lands
away right and and it’s playable and it’s good fun all the time lines massively overlooked you’d say by a lot
of courses oh hugely yet so the the mower lines and and flow with the golf course so how how the holes flow from
one green to the next tea is huge and oh it’s oh I know yeah the two guys take the piss I
mean like I think you listen to the podcast sometimes and it’s like the guys take the piss because I’ll be like oh I love a transition but it is great when
everything’s tied in because there’s a feeling of Continuum through the golf course I think over the last 50 years it’s
evolved into this world of I play this hole and then I want to play the next hole feeling like it’s a complete
separate Enclave to to what I’ve played before and it’s like no no you want it to feel like a Continuum right yeah and
that’s where again that’s one thing that Holly likes being a you know uh of the last 15 20 years their transitions are
fantastic amazing so again poof calls were fantastic there you can see them where they’ve been working a lot on that
and that’s what that’s what we’re trying to do here now which improving transitions improving
flow in improving contour and there’s some unbelievable contour and that was lost through scrub through uh to
generate Woodlands uh so we’ve cleared a lot of the degenerate Woodlands off the course
yeah so we’ve cleared a lot of Dunes that were uh health and safety risk that
come to the end of their life cycle and we’ve opened up Dunes that people never knew existed and we’re talking 50 60
foot Tunes so the site all of a sudden we’re ripping it back to how it how it
originally was with no scrub uh no trees uh lovely flowing walkways big green
surrounds massive Fairways uh so really they’re that they’re the sort of hall there’s sort of like the calling
cards of great 21st century architecture and great Golden Age architecture yeah it’s all kind of Gone full circle right
so in two years we we’ve stripped the course back and it’s made an incredible difference it almost feels like you play
in a different golf course but fundamentally it’s again it’s brilliant Basics almost you know
it’s basic stuff but it’s just getting the basics right so we’re now at a point where we’ve got the basics right we’re
at a good place now and and now we’ve engaged with Clayton DeVries and pornstar architect so for me it was
important to get the basics right let’s get the fundamentals right and and that’s what we’ve done over the
last two years and it’s come to the point now where we need to progress the links further so I was happy to know do
grass Pathways put new T’s in level T’s uh re-contour some bunkers but
it’s bigger we’re thinking now and to be able to do that we need to partner with some you know like-minded people and and
Clayton to respond to uh being appointed as our Architects and and we’re looking
to develop the course further now what can you share around that so uh again
the the site is sure is so good at well see that it’s almost uh people use the
the phrase and embarrassments are rich as well she’s just got an embarrassment to Richardson
paintings so what we’re looking at now is uh again
we’re looking to get the basics right we’re looking at uh bunker design bunker style you know is Reverend for us do we
want to naturalize our bunkers our Fairway bunkers our green side to have a more uh natural look to the June scape
uh we’re looking at improving flow improving green surrounds uh and then
there’s some bigger picture one thing world so that letter down as the practice facilities so we’re looking
there do we need to relocate holes we’re looking at potentially rebuilding two
three holes in land that’s presently not used uh so we’ve been working on on a
lot of the development over the last year and and we’ll be sharing the the plans with the membership hopefully
before Christmas this year so there’s lots of opportunities for Wallace it
just depends on on how ambitious the membership is for change Apple a driving factory is the practice
facilities are rarely fit for purpose so if we want to move into the next 100 years and be at the Forefront of some
amateur golf we’re going to have to make some changes and that’s not been unusual
for Elsie whilst you’re out of any course in the country is developed and and reinvented itself more than any so I
think it’s a case of the club being strong and my view is leaving it in a better place than we found it I mean it
feels like there’s there’s obviously quite a few changes of foot with the course you know the the involvement of
CDP and obviously Frank Pont regular so this podcast will be bored of hearing but you know Frank ponds had an enormous
you know impact on Blackwell you know just by kind of bringing back some of the Simpson Fowler stuff that we’ve had
there um I think um I I guess I don’t want to push too much
on that because I think there’s a lot that’s got to go through the membership and and those plans probably haven’t even been kind of like formulated yet
one thing that we we cannot do a podcast about is is talking about some of the Great
Stuff linked to the history of Wallace and you did a great job in terms of you know narrating some of that with me
downstairs but you know almost feels like Wallace is actually a bit of a mecca for amateur golf in England and
maybe overlooked somewhat because you know two of the Great figures in the in the amateur game have
really significant stories to tell from wallacy don’t they so you know obviously Dr Frank stableford with the you know
with with finding his his scoring system you know really I think um Joe Pennington a royal Liverpool coined the
phrase that he’d saved the amateur golfer but he kind of did really absolutely yeah it’s like that’s that’s
like that’s like every Hammer to golfers like best friend now exactly yeah
um and obviously the Bobby Jones stuff so you’ve got like obviously the paintings downstairs the Jones one in
particular you know I knew you guys had had it but then seeing the signature and everything on there I was like oh my God
yeah this is amazing so yeah well see it’s uh
going back for it it’s it’s been a club over the last 130 years where because
the the dunes were mobile it was close to folding two or three
times but in its history and the committee and people associated with the club have made some of the toughest
decisions that committee members would have to choose but we’re now blessed with the course now because of that but
the likes of Bobby Jones qualifying for the open in 1930 1932 the the stableford system and it’s
strange because 30 years earlier Frank Stapleford and this is relatively you know well
known with a lot of the historians had tried to stable for the system 30 years
earlier but it it happened well it was it wasn’t the same format it is used and
it was he implied to point system after the round was finished okay so it was
nowhere near the same system but it was almost he never ever talked about the 30 years
prior because I think it wasn’t well respect it wasn’t well received he didn’t kind of go off the ground
it’s the fact that it allows humans to park it on the green doesn’t it I think that’s the beauty of stable fed is the
fact that you can have an absolute disaster but you can then Park that before you hit
the exactly and then the the beauty of it while she is in 1932 when you know 30
years prior he you know he never even talked about that because it was a different system it was it was a point
system that was played that was added to this the scorecard after the round so to speak uh
the the the the he obviously was the second hold into prevailing ones a really tough hole and it’s notorious for
people ripping the score cards up and at this point he probably ripped another scorecards up in the May of 92 and it
said right we’ve got to find a better a better idea and it’s attachment to them while she remembers that they then crowd
the system where obviously you you you do the point system as you’re playing it in round uh and they loved it and if the
members of Worlds he hadn’t you know unanimously love the system it would never have got off the ground it just it
would have may have been another Joe who knows we’re just guessing but uh
it’s a testament that they were brave enough to use a different scoring system
when back then it would have been so strange and abnormal to to go to it just
it just shows what impact they’ve had because they were brave enough to try different stuff and also I’d be mad to
think how that thing sort of scaled like you know it’s so commonplace to play that now but there’s loads of little
formats people make up and play with their friends but they don’t become a global globally recognized I mean it
fundamentally underpins the world handicapping system now exactly yeah that’s it yes like how did that I’ve
actually become a thing where you know obviously and it’s a weird time it’s like early 30s you’ve kind of got only
about seven more years before everything kind of grinds to a halt anyway for six years yeah so it must have had some sort
of like some really early and fast success I mean like you know I I don’t
know it off the top of my head but I suppose those first 10 years of the stable food system would be quite interesting to understand because it
must have gone viral for it to reach the levels that buy you know kind of by the
60s 70s 80s Club golf kind of revolves around Stables the system that’s quiet it’s quite strange when you think about
it yeah anyway we digress and and obviously Mr Frank Stapleton was a past captain and obviously engrossed in in
the town he was a local GP and so it’s just a lovely story and yeah and if if
the welshie members wouldn’t have unanimous unanimously enjoyed it and backed it then it wouldn’t have carried
on so obviously that’s where uh framed to be the home of stableford didn’t rightly show yeah and you’ve obviously
got that wall which on the one side you’ve got the stone for painting and on the other you’ve got that that original drawing of Bobby Jones which you know is
famously replicated and but and you know Butler’s Cabin and you know Royal Liverpool and stuff it’s an incredible
incredible story um John I’ve really enjoyed that I sense you might be a three-peat on the Pod
because I feel like there’s probably another podcast in this next year when there’s some more stuff happening with the course but
um yeah really good really good part the stuff about the the team building and the green stuff and the brilliant Basics
it’s like you know people are going to latch on to that there’s going to be people ringing you up left right and
center now of every Faith trying to trying to get some secret sauce out of you but um it’s really interesting here and you
unpack it so thanks so much that was really good yeah cheers
