NEXT ISSUE SERVICE DEALER BUSINESS QUARTERLY Magazine Summer 2013 published July 2013
Featuring Heritage Awards 2013 Focus on the North East Edwin Budding: a visionary Dairy of a Season Distributor Focus: Handy at 75 Countdown to SALTEX Download new Media Pack
Grass is a living, breathing, silky-soft, durable, sweet-smelling, wearable tactile 'carpet' on which sport has been played over the centuries.
The rub of the green, the bounce of the ball, the state of the pitch have always added an extra frisson to sport.
It is not boring carpet, plastic, tarmac, concrete or clay - grass needs to be factored into a game plan. Turf preparation is no longer haphazard. It needs a scientific and logistical regime that balances seed, soil, water, sun - with tender loving care.
It produces drama, upsets, triumphs and twists in the tail. Just ask Kurtly Beale who stepped up, and then fell down (wrong boots, or wrong turf?) when asked to kick a match-winning penalty for Australia to grab victory over the British Lions last Saturday.
Golfers have always blamed the greens for a missed putt, fairways wear during a tournament to create extra hazards. Batsmen prod the pitch when ‘castled’ cricket wickets change in character over the course of a game, adding new challenges.
Admirably at Wimbledon this year, the class players, Nadal, Federer recognised that on the day they were found wanting, they didn’t need to blame anything or anyone, only themselves.
The key to success in top class sport is preparation - and grass is always capable of being a changeable and sometimes unpredictable factor. The treadmill nature of the tennis circuit means that many players came virtually straight from the clay of Roland Garros to the lush grass of Wimbledon within two weeks. Some may have been too complacent and arrived under-cooked and under-prepared, but whose fault is that?
Wimbledon wouldn’t be Wimbledon without that special X-factor that grass throws at players . That's why we have been thrilled by the Championships every year it comes around.
Over the years, the likes of Rosewall, Hoad, Borg, Lendl, Connors, McEnroe have hurled themselves across the courts. Stretching every sinew, testing every muscle. They knew the court would be different at the end of the fortnight than in the first few days, often depending on sun or rain.
Wimbledon was special to them - and required respect.
