Laurence Pithie – Maintenance Manual

Laurence Pithie, Europe’s first Master Greenkeeper has written this complete Maintenance Manual. A series of systems and procedures to help you in the management of your golf course.

This manual comes complete with a disc for downloading various files.

The manual consists of 28 different sections and covers virtually all aspects of setting up a maintenance system for managing your golf course. It is not a manual for growing or maintaining fine turf but it is a series of documents, work sheets and records that will help you manage your course in a more effective and professional manner.

The contents include the following:
• A ‘generic’ policy document
• Varying examples of standards including course & equipment
• Man-hour studies
• Budgeting worksheets and working ledger
• Capital expenditures
• Training workbooks
• Staff appraisals
• Course audits
• Inventories
• Equipment & Golf Cart information
• Fertiliser & Chemical data
• Job Descriptions
• Winter play guidelines
• Reports and Newsletter examples
• Various turf tips & Course data

Price members: 165,- euro
Price non-members: 195,- euro

To order, please send an e-mail or call +31 (0)20 3306103.

Laurence Pithie – Seasonable Requirements for Golf Course Management

This manual is an excellent reference book detailing the key maintenance tasks required for each of the four seasons (spring, summer, autumn and winter) carried out on a golf course. The maunal is aimed primarily for all those who work in the golfing industry in a role managing or maintaining golf courses.

Spring: Transition from Winter
Laurence explains the key tasks to set the golf course up for the forthcoming playing season. Touching on spring renovations, aeration, fertilising, over seeding, topdressing, mowing and more.

Summer: Peak Season and Performance
This chapter looks at quality of playing surfaces, definition of playing areas, consistency, irrigation/water management and detailed presentation issues.

Autumn: Renovation and Preparation
This chapter looks at the key works required to renovate the playing surfaces (autumn renovations) usually undertaken at the end of September or early October. Other topics discussed are reducing mowing frequencies, closing down irrigation systems, disease prevention programmes and planned winter works.

Winter: Playability and Projects
This final chapter delves into the work practices that ensure the course remains playable during the winter months, when often weather conditions can influence the condition and dictate what work can be done out on the course. Subjects discussed are maintaining dry surfaces, traffic control measures, completion of turfing repair works, woodland/environmental management and machinery servicing / repairs.

Price members: 29,- euro
Price non-members: 49,- euro

To order, please send us an e-mail or call +31(0)203306103.

Laurence Pithie – Managing Golf Courses More Effectively

Laurence Pithie has served the greenkeeping industry for 38 years, 23 of which have ranged from an apprentice greenkeeper to that of Course Manager. Since 1992, he has headed up the Maintenance Division for Golf Management Companies, mainly American Golf and more recently with Crown Golf. Laurence was the UK’s first Master Greenkeeper in 1991 and is also a former winner of the Greenkeeper and Groundsman of the Year in 1984 and 1988.

His role within Crown Golf was to oversee the maintenance and development of their 33 properties. He has recently completed an entire Golf Course operational manual The aim being to offer all clubs within Europe a basic reference manual for managing a golf course.

GCAE Member price € 29
Non-member € 49

To order please send us an e-mail or call +31 (0)203306103.

GCAE Manual – Pace of Play

As a golf course owner or manager, you have a product to sell to your customers. Your product is a golfing experience that lets players know they have received value for the price they’ve paid. Surveys have shown that golfers rank pace of play among the very top features they look for when choosing a course to play. There is a high correlation between a player’s perception of value and pace of play during the round. A player’s memory of waiting before playing every shot will ruin the playing experience; it cheapens the “product” and destroys the player’s perception of value.

GCAE Member price € 39
Non-member € 65

To order please send us an e-mail or call +31 (0)20 3306103.

GCAE Manual – 51 Ways to increase customer retention

After years of unabated growth and development, the European golf industry stands at a crossroads. Industry analysts claim that the number of rounds currently available to the golfing enthusiast now exceeds demand. New courses have been built at an unprecedented rate. Of course, building and maintaining these new courses doesn’t come cheap. Course operators hoping to achieve the projected return on investment associated with this expansion must make a substantial commitment to the principles and practices of loyalty marketing. This booklet hopes to give you the tools and techniques required to achieve that vision.

GCAE Member price € 24
Non-member € 44

To order please send us an e-mail or call +31 (0)20 3306103.

GCAE Manual – Internet marketing: your course online

We believe that every member course can use the Internet to its advantage. Your efforts online can directly support your business goals and create tremendous value. Yet, learning about the Internet’s potential and then applying that learning to your business is a difficult task. There has never been a medium so complex yet so measurable and so efficient, all at the same time.

So we created a simple guide to help you translate your business vision to the online environment.

GCAE Member price € 24
Non-member € 44

To order please send us an e-mail or call +31 (0)20 3306103.

GCAE Manual – 51 Ways to a more profitable operation

With the effects of an oversupplied golf market lingering for the foreseeable future, course operators are faced with many challenges and opportunities. The resulting effects have caused course operators across the country to cut prices and expenses in an attempt to “stop the bleeding”. This cycle conditions operators to think that the only controllable item within their business is expenses, because revenues keep dropping no matter what they try. This is only partially true. The only way to break this cycle is to think and respond differently. The only way results will change is to change the process that produces the results.

GCAE Member price € 24
Non-member € 44

To order please send us an e-mail or call +31 (0)20 3306103.

GCAE Manual – Guide to a more Profitable Food and Beverage Operation

Since 1991, Profitable Food Facilities has been in the business of advising and evaluating public and private golf courses (among other recreational facilities classified as being in the “captive market” business) how to better manage the food and beverage (f/b) within. Each club has distinctive challenges, but there are common threads that identify all the f/b operations, the core of which is discussed here. This manual can best be described as a collection of primers and notes based on findings at over 100 golf establishments.

GCAE Member price € 76
Non-member € 115

To order please send us an e-mail or call +31 (0)20 3306103.