Ipswich Town FC lent Ipswich Golf Club Wiedenmann machine

By Alistair May 21, 2019 18:07 Updated

Last season, Graham Brumpton, courses manager at Ipswich Golf Club, placed a Wiedenmann Terra Spike GXi8 HD top of his wish list. Resigned to a long wait until the release of a new budget, he hadn’t bargained on the help of neighbours, Ipswich Town FC. Sporting in every sense of the word, they generously stepped in by loaning out their GXi8 HD on a temporary basis.

“It was really decent gesture from Ben Connell and his team, one we will reciprocate. It confirmed the GXi8 was right. Build quality is second to none. Barely any issues just wear and tear. For what it actually does out on the course you couldn’t choose a better machine to go across your greens,” said Graham Brompton.

In January, the club’s Wiedenmann GXi8 HD arrived at the Suffolk heathland course, together with a 2.3m wide Wiedenmann Terra Rake.

“We had made a head start with the borrowed machine,” continued Graham. “For the last seven years we’d targeted a range of depths to 14 inches (400 mm) on greens with our existing Wiedenmann XP6, accepting the trade-off for going as deep was slower speed.

“However, demand for play on both our 18 hole Purdis Heath and the nine hole Bixley is now pretty much constant. Faster aeration brings flexibility. A new machine meant reducing both time spent and disruption. We can get 18 holes done in two days still leaving us opportunity to do a micro-tine to nip the aeration holes or a quick sand dress,” continued Graham. “We can achieve more.”

So now the club owns three Terra Spikes, the machine’s roles have been re-assigned; the club’s original 2.1 m wide XP8 bought by Graham’s predecessor in 2003 is exclusively for full depth work down to 400 mm on fairways, tees and approaches. The XP6 (2012) will do similar with occasional greens’ duties added while the GXi8 HD with its ‘access all areas’ badge principally will be on greens down to 250 mm.

Graham, and his team of eight at the James Braid designed courses, have another time saving mission earmarked for their new deep aerator.

“We have a long standing pedestrian machine used for micro-tining which takes almost a week to do the greens. Switching over to multi tine heads on the GXi8 HD will save us three full days. Not only will we save working time but it eliminates the business of rotating staff and moving them from job to job every two hours.”

Each of the eight ‘legs’ of the GXi8 HD can hold 12 individual 5mm tines in a multi head. With a full set of multi heads the number of holes punched at the same speed goes up three fold. Regular deep tining involves up to 32 separate tines in sizes starting at 8 mm diameter where with multi tine heads the greenkeeping team can achieve up to 96 tines with 5 mm diameters.

Co-ordinating the delivery and machine set up was Eddie Jack, Field Sales Manager, from Ernest Doe & Sons dealers at North Walsham.