Nestled in the Cluide Woods amongst the Tara Hills in County Meath, is arguably one of the most beautiful and relaxing golf courses in Ireland.

It’s only a stone’s throw from Dublin city, and boasts tree-lined fairways like you may never have seen the likes of before. The Royal Tara Golf Club was founded in 1906. Today it is a glorious 27 hole golf complex that sits alluringly amongst a luscious, rolling parkland, just waiting to be played.

There’s more than a touch of pride in everyone who either works or plays here, as talking with the Head Green-Keeper Jim McElroy reveals. “We’ve got a very mature, year-round course here,” said Jim, “with long, undulating drives, mostly lined by beautiful trees and, with my team of six green-keeper colleagues, we maintain the course to the highest and utmost standards. We kind of live the course and I believe it shows.”

Jim McElroy has been with the Royal Tara for some 25 years. When you visit the Golf Club, you will see long, well-manicured drives with beautiful, synchronised striping, adding a touch of excellence to the beauty of nature. “That doesn’t come naturally,” added Jim, “myself and my team of green-keepers work very hard, every day to prepare the entire course for our discerning visitors. We’ve invested in high quality equipment to make our job simple, and the club management team allow us to buy what we need to produce the best of the best. Recently, we took delivery of a new wide area mower, which has enabled us to prepare the rough with such excellence.”

They recently took delivery of a Major, TDR20000 mower with a folding, 6.1m wide, cutting deck. It probably has the lowest maintenance cost of any of the wide area mowers on the market, plus it leaves an amazing finish. What’s even better is that it’s designed and manufactured by Major in Ireland, so brings even greater pride to the green-keepers using it!

It has ten rotors, with 40 blades and is the simplest of mowers to set the cutting height. It has rollers front and rear and a unique three-point pivot system, the design of which avoids scalping, but always leaves the perfect striped finish. The rotors contra rotate and blades overlap by 75mm and therefore avoid any missed grass and indeed avoiding any windowing, because the grass is chopped very small and disappears into the stubble - so improving soil composition.

Commented Jim, “We used to use a ‘ride-on batwing mower’ but that was very slow, not so good at avoiding scalping and was quite expensive to maintain, both in terms of replacement parts and downtime. So we needed to find a high performance mower, which was easy to operate and simple to maintain, with low running costs. That’s exactly what the Major TDR is providing - low running costs. We also needed a higher capacity performance so we could cover the course quicker and be a lot more efficient. Again, that’s exactly what the Major TDR gives us!”

Jim and his team operate the Major TDR using a 75hp tractor. Because of the manoeuvrability, they can get around trees very easily and need to spend less time trimming misses. With a 6.1 meter cut, they can cover up to 16 acres per hour and have reduced their operating time from what was a full week, down now to just over three days.

Despite being a very wide machine, the Major TDR does fold into three, and therefore has a transport width of just 2.5 metres. It comes standard with LED lighting, all the bearings are sealed internal roller bearings so are protected against soil and water damage and there are also optional extras such as a remote control or a braked axle.

Enthused Jim, “this is one of the best pieces of equipment that we have at The Royal Tara. We set the cut-of height for the rough at about sixty millimetres (60mm) and if we wanted to we could set it as low as ten millimetres (10mm) - and without scalping. When you look at the finish it leaves, with the effects of the front and rear rollers, it’s just like we would get with a cylinder mower - if not better!. This has to be the best, most productive and cost-effective decision we have made at The Royal Tara. The Major TDR is so well built, that I can see this lasting for many years to come. The feedback we are getting from the members is very positive and we get a lot of remarks about how good the course looks and how well it plays. So we are all very proud of our golf course and we intend to keep it that way.” he concluded.