Gary Armstrong is the golf course manager at Hellidon Lakes in Northamptonshire. He takes us through his average day.

What time do you arrive at the club and what is your morning routine?
It’s dependent on the season but generally in the summer we work from 6am until 3:30pm, and in the winter it’s 7:30am until 2:30pm. The first job is always to go through the tasks for the day ahead then get straight out to work.

How many people are there in your team and do you share tasks?
There are currently five of us in total, though we do also have additional seasonal team members in busy periods. All the tasks are always shared around, everyone’s trained on everything.

How do you motivate your colleagues?
I, personally, am very hands on and I like to think that I treat people fairly. The team I work with are a good bunch, they are all good greenkeepers, who enjoy what they do and are self-motivated to want to do a great job.

What aspects of your job give you the greatest satisfaction?
Training young people. I am nearing the end of my career, so I really enjoy seeing somebody new come into the industry and then helping them to go onto bigger and better things.

And the least satisfaction?
The expectations of the golfer have gone up and up over the years! Often the expectations can feel unreasonable considering what we have to contend with in terms of weather and disease.

Have you attended any courses recently?
I haven’t recently, but two of the team are currently doing their level two qualifications. We have done courses at BTME in Harrogate previously and a number of industry manufacturers / suppliers quite regularly run seminars, which we try and attend when we can.

What is your favourite season of the year and why?
Spring – you emerge from winter and can finally look forward to longer, brighter days.

Are you witnessing evidence of climate change and has your job had to adapt to changing weather patterns?
Absolutely. We are seeing much milder days, which results in mowing later into the year. The weather tends to swing between wetter winters, where you’re tackling drainage issues, to hot summers which means irrigation issues! In general, we are having to accept the fact that people are playing golf later in the year which, in itself, takes some adapting too in terms of maintenance schedules.

Have you had to overcome issues with disease or pests?
This year in particular has been very difficult – we’ve had a prominent attack of fusarium patch, alongside seemingly continual problems with worms and leather jackets.

What piece of equipment would you say is the most popular and frequently used by you and your team?  
Our new Kubota L2-622 and Trimax mower have been a brilliant investment. The Kubota compact tractor has quickly become our main workhorse – running our trailed mower, sprayers, trailers, side-arm flails … basically anything that requires tractor power!  

With a growing focus on sustainability, do you deploy any sustainable practices in the management of your course?
One of my goals is to manage the course as sustainably as possible, using minimal amounts of fertiliser, although it is not always possible. We have our own water source, with springs, lakes and reservoirs, which means we are in the very fortunate position of not having to buy water in.

What do you do to support wildlife?
Hellidon Lakes is a big site, approximately 350 acres in total, which includes lots of woodland which is particularly good for wildlife. We’ve also got plenty of longer grass areas and have reduced the amount of rough and semi rough areas that we cut, allowing nature to take over. We also have installed quite a few bird boxes around the site.

What are the technological developments that you feel have been the most important in your career to date?
Generally, the advancement of machinery, for example mowers, which are much more precise and give a much better quality of cut than they ever did. Sprayers have also come on a long way, what we’re using now is lightyears away from what I started my career with! We recently got a new Team Sprayer which we run on our Kubota, and even being 10 years newer than our previous sprayer, they’re incomparable in terms of performance!

Do you use social media professionally and what do you think this contributes to the industry?
I don’t personally, but the team have a WhatsApp where we log everything and it gets sent to the internal marketing team who then decide what goes on the socials! Being able to do this means members and other greenkeeping teams can see what we are up too and vice versa.

How would you improve the greenkeeping industry?
I would try and improve the perception of greenkeeping to the wider audience. A lot of golfers have an understanding of what we do, but the wider public generally still see golf as an elite, upper class sport which just uses up land it doesn’t need. The course here only makes up part of Hellidon Lakes, the rest is a big nature reserve, but people possibly don’t know that! I don’t think we sell what we do, or the value of the land on the golf course, enough. People might look more favourably on things if they realised we use the water from our own sources and have numerous other sustainable practices in place.

What advice would you give to a young greenkeeper starting out today?
Don’t be put off by negative feedback or swayed by people telling you to get an easier job elsewhere. The reality of a lot of jobs is that you’re required to work outside of Monday to Friday but, importantly, find something you enjoy. There can be great satisfaction to be had in a job like greenkeeping.

How do you spend your leisure time?
I am a big Sunderland fan, so I try and watch matches when I can!
I still play a bit of golf, and spend time seeing my family and grandchildren.