Meet the head greenkeeper: Muir Ross

By Alistair August 11, 2023 06:19

From Golspie Golf Club in Scotland, Muir talks about course recovery after extreme weather events, rolling the greens and moving to a disease-resistant grass species.

Can you give a brief description of your background and how you came to work at Golspie Golf Club?

I’ve been a greenkeeper now for 27 years and I’ve been at Golspie for five years. Greenkeeping always seemed like a good idea for me. I like being outside and played golf as a kid, so I started as an apprentice at Inverness straight out of school at the age of 16. It’s worked out well; I can’t complain!

What do you enjoy most about your job and what is the biggest challenge you and your team face when maintaining the course?

There’s being outside, of course, but I like seeing a golf course come together and keeping it up to a good standard all summer. That’s the challenge.

Our number one challenge would be weather these days. Ten years ago, before my time, the course was closed for months after Golspie took the brunt of a terrible storm. Some of the shoreline was lost and it took a lot of work to recover, but apart from that you wouldn’t know anything had happened now. Since I’ve been here we’ve had some dry summers but we haven’t had anything on that scale of devastation yet.

Budgetary limits are also a big factor nowadays with rising costs and inflation being such a problem. We do what we can with the budget and think a lot about what we need and what we can afford to lose. It’s all about balance and not letting the course suffer because that’s what brings people in. We’ve got a great reputation with members and visitors and we don’t want to do anything to damage that.

What’s been the proudest achievement for you and your team at Golspie so far?

I think the level of income and number of visitors we’re getting now is probably our greatest achievement. Income from green fees has more than tripled since I joined. We’ve started to push ourselves a bit harder and feedback from visitors has been especially good. There are three greenkeepers working full time, plus a seasonal, so four for the summer, and we do get things done.

The club invested in a Tru-Turf RC50 greens roller. Why did you select this piece of equipment, is it easy to use, what areas are you using it on and has it improved the surface?

We had the little sister of this roller, the RS48, and it did an absolutely fine job so we knew we would get another from this range. Like the RS48, the RC50 is simple to use and sticks to the ground very well here. Both of our neighbouring courses, Brora and Dornoch, have the same model. At Golspie we’re out two or three times a week with the roller at the moment. We’re going through a species change on the greens so we’re rolling quite a bit. We’re managing to keep the pace thanks to this machine and it’s as good as, or even better than the roller it replaced.

What are you working on at the moment and what projects have you got planned?

We’re continuing to try to get better grass species. We’ve made good progress on the greens and now we’ve started going out further to the approaches, tees and fairways. We’re investing time and money on these areas to make a better golf course all round and to work towards sustainability. It’s better for the budget too if we move to disease resistant grass species. We’re well underway with this project and there’s a way to go, but we’re certainly trying hard!

For more information on the Tru-Turf RC50 greens roller, visit www.doublea.co.uk