John Deere Press Room 2009

Castletroy Golf Club in Limerick is one of Ireland's finest parkland courses, and the only private members’ course located within the city boundaries. The course was completely redesigned from 2004 to 2006 under the supervision of architect Eddie Connaughton, with 18 tee box and green complexes constructed to USGA specifications, as well as the introduction of new fairway bunkers and water features throughout the course.

The club’s first John Deere fleet was bought to coincide with the course reconstruction, and has now been upgraded with a second batch of new machines supplied by Killarney dealer Seamus Weldon, on a five year lease purchase finance deal with permanent TSB Finance.

After course superintendent Aidan Hiney’s arrival at Castletroy in 2003, he and general manager Paddy Keane looked at the whole structure of the club, including the machinery fleet, and the decision was taken to spend what was necessary to make and maintain improvements to the course.

“Historically there was no machinery fleet replacement programme in place, so it was very much mix and match and downtime was a big problem,” says Aidan. “We decided the best way forward was to go down the partnership route, so we assessed all the major suppliers on the basis of product demonstrations and, more crucially, back-up support.”

Aidan Hiney and five full-time staff now benefit from a large John Deere fleet, including three 220C walk-behind greens mowers, two 2500E hybrid and one 2500B triplex greens mowers, an 8800 TerrainCut semi-roughs mower, two 2520 27hp compact tractors and a Gator 6x4 utility vehicle. These newest machines joined a range of older John Deere walk-behind and ride-on greens, tees & surrounds and fairway mowers, an Aercore 1000 tractor-mounted aerator and a 1200A bunker rake.

“We have developed a very good relationship with Seamus and Michael Weldon from the dealership, and any problems have been few and far between,” says Aidan. “We probably take it for granted now, but their back-up has been superb, and I believe very few dealers could match Weldon’s in this area – they’ve been a huge help to us from the beginning.

“With our latest fleet, the idea was to get jobs completed in less time, so we wanted additional capacity and the ability to specify machines for each job. The new course is over 650 yards longer, with the fairways as wide as they can be, so we introduced an intermediate cut to make the rough more playable – hence the decision to buy John Deere’s new 8800 semi-roughs mower.

“The soil is very fertile, so we cut the rough every day. You have to keep on top of it or you can get into trouble, as even a day can make a huge difference. Because of this machinery downtime used to crucify us, and it was just very hard to catch up.

“Castletroy is a very busy golf course, so traffic in winter leading to surface compaction is another big issue. Although we are implementing a new aeration plan to deal with this, we invested in a complete new irrigation and drainage system during the reconstruction. If we can produce good, playable greens when other clubs can’t or don’t want to, especially in winter, it makes a very strong impression on members and visitors.

“There’s been a lot of focus on the course over a number of years, to everyone’s benefit,” says Aidan. “There is a lot of demand for golf in this area, throughout the year, and expectations are very high, particularly since the course reconstruction. The partnership with Weldon’s and John Deere certainly helps us to meet those expectations.”

August 2009