Ladbrook Park Golf Club has achieved significant savings to its course maintenance budget, replacing an ageing fleet with just four Ventrac 4520 all-terrain compact tractors and 13 attachments.
The cost saving of taking this route and not replacing machinery on a like-for-like basis resulted in a highly significant cost saving as well as providing additional flexibility in its course management regime.
With the exception of the greens, the majority of their prestigious 1908 Colt-designed course, situated in the Warwickshire countryside near Tanworth-in-Arden, is now maintained with the Ventrac equipment.
Commenting on the club’s decision to take this significant route, course manager Kevin Fellows said, “With the exception of our fine turf areas, nearly all of the course is maintained with Ventrac equipment. They fit in with our agronomic requirements and do everything apart from fine turf and aeration. For all other areas – approaches, fairways, semi, rough, our ecology areas, transport, ditching, haulage – the Ventrac system fits perfectly. At the moment we have everything we need. It fits our current maintenance plan; tomorrows objectives and our longer-term direction.
“When the cost options were put on the table it became a bit of a no-brainer. It is difficult to justify spending close to £100,000 or thereabouts, on a dedicated mower to cut the rough and then put in the shed at the end of October and let it sit there, doing nothing, for three to four months.”
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