Greenkeeping staff from as far apart as South Africa and St.Andrews will converge on Dubai next month for the European Tour’s sixth bi-annual Greenkeepers Conference.
The four-day conference at the Jebel Ali Hotel affords the greenkeeping personnel from the main European Tour as well as the Challenge and Senior Tours a wonderful opportunity to meet, mix and discuss some of the latest and most sophisticated methods of preparing golf courses.
A total of 57 leading greenkeepers and course consultants are attending the event, which is being staged in the Middle East for the first time following three visits to Penina and one to La Manga.
The European Tour’s Greenkeeping Consultant, Richard Stillwell, Chris Kennedy of Wentworth Club, Gerry Byrne of the K Club and Loch Lomond’s Ken Siems are among the guest speakers while David Garland and David Probyn, respectively Director and Assistant Director of Tour Operations, will also address the conference.
Garland will chair most of the sessions, which will bring together many of the top experts in their highly specialised fields.
The Director of Tour Operations explained: "This conference is an extremely important opportunity for the European Tour to bring together a large number of greenkeepers every two years on a fairly informal basis.
"We believe it is essential that the Tour and the greenkeeping staff who prepare the courses, can pass on ideas, techniques and knowledge on all aspects of a difficult skill. All golf courses have problems, even the best conditioned ones which we play on the European Tour.
"This conference can allay the fears of some greenkeepers that they are the only ones with problems and that the big ones have it easy. I can assure them that trying to cultivate a living plant and dealing with nature is always difficult, and it is sometimes hard to achieve the desired result."
The theme of the conference, sponsored by Textron Turf Care and Speciality Products and Scotts, will be Annual Meadow Grass. Both companies will be represented at the Jebel Ali and will conduct lectures and practical demonstrations of their specialist products.
The delegates will visit the Emirates Golf Club, host to the Dubai Desert Classic since 1989, and also get a chance to check out the changes made to the Dubai Creek Club, which will stage the Desert Classic for the first time in 1999.
Garland added: "We are very grateful to Textron and Scotts for their support and I am certain that the conference will be hugely beneficial to all whose primary concern is the quality of the playing surfaces at European Tour venues.
"Ken Glover of the Emirates will make a presentation at that wonderful golf course and we will also undertake a site visit to Dubai Creek. It should be most informative to see how those courses produce a continually high standard of maintenance in such a hostile growing environment."
