Golf: Temporary job that lasted 47 years for Derek Postlethwaite

May 20 2008 by Harold Brough, Liverpool Daily Post

THE LINKS land on the Formby coast is among the finest in all England. Manicured fairways and greens, heather and sand dunes, the sounds of the birds and the whispering wind, the scent of the sea and the pines.

And Derek Postlethwaite regards the place as his own.

It is a satisfying but fanciful thought. He lives nearby in his home with his wife, dog and lots of pigeons.

Yet across more than four decades he has walked countless miles around Formby golf links, in wind, rain and sun, so that he knows each rise and hollow in the land, the individual trees, the plants and the abundant wildlife.

Formby Golf Club has been in existence for almost 130 years and Derek, the head greenkeeper, has been there for more than one-third of that period, for almost half a century.

The British International Golf Greenkeepers Association say they cannot think of many greenkeepers who have had a longer time in the job. So it is not surprising that, talking of Formby, Derek says: “I do treat it as if it is my own.”

That is until now and his retirement. He has a farewell gift from the club, framed pictures of the ninth green at the time of the Amateur in 1967 and again in 1984 before that green was taken by the sea and had to be replaced and, of course, he has the memories that come from almost half a century working there.

“The best time is the early morning in the summer and the quietness,” he says. “I will miss the place. I will miss the wildlife. You see more in the early mornings.”

He has seen the rabbits, foxes, pheasants and buzzards.

Derek was at Formby for 47 years, becoming head greenkeeper and rejecting the many suggestions he should take the more modern job description of course manager. Yet when he went there at the start of the 1960s it was as no more than a temp for that summer season. He had left school to become an apprentice joiner but says: “I always fancied the outdoors.”

The job has, of course, changed. In 1960, with four full-time staff and Derek, the greens were cut with handmowers and the job lasted three-and-a-half hours by the time the machines were washed, greased and the cylinders re-set for the next day. Now with a modern machine one man can do the job in four hours.

Cutting the fairways, too, became easier and quicker as ride-on mowers replaced the gang mowers, pulled by tractors.

The greens, cut every other day in the 1960s and 1970s are now cut every day. Fairways that used to be cut once a week are now cut twice and sometimes three times.

Greens are manicured and whereas the machinery of the 1960s could “scalp” the grass on the high spots, modern cutters “float” on the rises. So the fairways, too, are manicured.

“Years ago you would get the course right for the weekend,” he recalls. “Now the course is presented to perfection seven days a week. The expectations of golfers are greater. Yes, television, pictures of Augusta and Wentworth have played a part. But it is what we want too, a course presented to perfection, seven days a week, manicured to perfection.”

He says the course itself has changed, become dryer during his time. He believes climate change is responsible and explains that the water table has dropped.

Sometimes he has been on the course at 6am, to move the tee markers and change the holes. Excluding R& A tournaments, the flag positions are his decision and, of course, he can make that tough for golfers.

Tough, but fair? “Yes, that’s right,” he says. “Good expression that. Where it goes can depend on the way the wind is blowing. Also you don’t want to put it into a low-lying area in wet conditions.”

Before the age of pop-up sprinklers, when moveable sprinklers were used, there have been occasions when he has been watering greens as late as midnight, at the end of a hot day. Even in later years there have been times when he has been there late at night to water a green if the computer-controlled irrigation system developed a fault.

But when the weather is kind it is a beautiful workplace.

“The best times include early winter mornings after a snow fall, beautiful as the sun is coming up,” he says. “The worst times are a bitter winter’s morning and an east wind. The winds collect the pine needles and there will be twigs around the course, trees down.

“There are two seasons for me, March to October and maintaining the course, October to February, reconstruction work, work on tees and bunkers and so on. It is like having another job.”

Formby is a Site of Special Scientific Interest and is managed with consideration for the wildlife and plants. It is also managed for its beauty, which helps explain why thousands of trees are planted, including pines.

But golfers have priority and he has presented the course to the high standards for members and great events across many years, including the Brabazon, the qualifying rounds for the Open, the Amateur in 1984 when Jose Maria Olazabal beat Colin Montgomerie, the Curtis Cup in 2004 – he has received many compliments on his work.

He has played the game too, in the cup competition organised by Formby and adjoining Formby Ladies Golf Club for staff and sometimes he has played a few holes with friends. But he admits that sometimes his thoughts have been elsewhere.

He means at home, looking after his racing pigeons. Racing pigeons have been his passion since boyhood and he now has 60 in two lofts in his garden. It is a matter too serious for him to have pet names for them, but he has a favourite.

He brought it into the house during our interview, a lovely white bird with part of the body darkened with feathers from light grey, to dark and then black. In early July the bird, with many others, will be transported to the south of France, liberated and hopefully it will fly the 550 miles home. With favourable weather it could be back in his garden in 12 hours.

“If it is missing I am in and out of the house,” he says. He is watchful for a disturbance among his birds anyway, anxious about sparrowhawks. The two mock owls outside the lofts may not always be enough protection.

He will not now have to set the alarm for 5.30am and wake in bed in the early hours, listening to the winter winds and imagining the wreckage in the pine trees on his golf course.

But he says: “At the moment I think I am on holiday.”