Ben Taylor keeping it tip top at The Hills

By Neville Idour 

Ben Taylor has slipped in nicely in the months since the previous course superintendent, then general manager Brendan Allen, needed a change in life. During his many years at The Hills, Allen had overseen a course which year round matches any course for overall condition.

Taylor had been his assistant for many years so the transition has proven to be seamless given the ongoing pristine condition of the course. Since taking over, Taylor has also managed some of the course improvements that Darius Oliver recommended.

Although Taylor had been the assistant greenkeeper, he is highly qualified and experienced in his own right. So it was good to sit down with Taylor and ask him how his life course led him to this position at The Hills in Arrowtown.

“I was born in Auckland  and went to Orewa College, north of Auckland,’’ Taylor started.

``Halfway through my schooling I was looking for part-time work and ended up on the golf course at Gulf Harbour (in north Auckland). I was 15 years old and was working on the driving range and wanted to get out onto the golf course. So I enquired about an apprenticeship and was told to go back to school for one last year, do horticulture and botany papers, mature up and start the following year. “

Taylor wanted to be a greenkeeper from the day he first set foot on a golf course when he was nine. He played on the Peninsula Golf Club course then and when his mother joined Gulf Harbour he played weekly. In 1998 he was at Gulf Harbour to watch the World Cup. 

“I was on the course and manning the range at that tournament and in 1999 I started my apprenticeship when I was 16 years old. The attraction was being outdoors and my love of the game. It didn’t feel that it would be your everyday job but would have a lot of diversity with every day being different. In a couple of years I became a spray technician before I qualified.

“Once I qualified I had big plans to go to America and do the Ohio State internship programme. I did get into golf course construction for a year before going, just to get some experience in a different side of greenkeeping. I was involved in some re-modelling work at Remuera, Manukau and Peninsula. I worked with Adam Jones who owns Grass Ltd.” That company was involved in the construction of Gulf Harbour, Pegasus and Waimairi Beach courses amongst many.

When 19 years old he went to the United States and worked at Kingsmill in Virginia where they had the Michelob LPGA event. 

“There were three courses there and we did two and a half months at each course under different superintendents in the organisation. A huge hurricane hit the golf course and they lost thousands of trees. So there were about six weeks of tidying up before we could get the courses back in play.”

At that time the interns were sent south for winter as the courses get shut down as the cold is a bit like Queenstown in winter. It was 2003 and Taylor then ended up at Augusta National for the winter. In March they had the preparations for the Masters and Taylor turned 21 in Masters week. Working there as a qualified intern for experience Taylor revealed that the way New Zealanders do their qualifications they come out very skilled in comparison to other countries.

 “There they do two or three years schooling then when they come out don’t actually know how to operate machinery. There is a lot of bookwork whereas we are on the job learning and studying.

“After the Masters the course shuts over summer and that is when they redevelop the course, resurface greens and upgrade systems. So we got a lot of exposure to construction on an extremely high end scale. With only a three or four month window to get it all done before winter it was speedy work.” 

While in the USA he got to play many courses with Augusta, unsurprisingly, his number one all time favourite.

Following Augusta and his 18 month internship Taylor returned to New Zealand and worked for his previous boss Adam Jones in Auckland.

“Following some construction work I had itchy feet again so headed for Melbourne where my sister was living and worked on a couple of courses on the sandbelt. After that I felt like I had accomplished quite a bit for a 21-year-old. (That seemed like something of an understatement).

``I had a few things I wanted to achieve as a youngster so I decided to go and work on super yachts in Europe and the Carribean for four years.”

As if his life couldn’t get more fascinating he said his time on the super yachts covered the whole spectrum of deckhand, cleaning, driving the boats including chase boats and tenders and looking after the guests. The first boat was based in Monaco followed by work on a Malta-based boat. He didn’t play any golf while living in Europe. 

Then it was back to New Zealand and recovering from knee surgery and meeting his wife to be, Carina. So he decided working on super yachts was not the right way to start a relationship and got back into the turf industry.

What caused the knee surgery?

“I was in Malta on the boat and went out on a wakeboard one afternoon for a bit of fun and ruptured my ACL (anterior cruciate ligament), so came back home for surgery rather than in Europe.” 

At age 26 by this stage he still had contacts in the industry and loved construction so got a five month contract to build some courses in Canada. He had one of the lead roles in a nine-hole build and also completing an 18-hole build.

“Then I came back home and saw a position available at Manly Golf Club in Sydney. So we packed up again and moved to Sydney for two and a half years. I was foreman in the redevelopment of the course. 

``Ten holes had been constructed so we did eight more to finish the project. While I was there my father passed away which was a blow. I felt I needed to look for a superintendent position and this took us to Adelaide at The Grange where I worked as the assistant. We were expecting our first child so were only there for six months as the position of assistant superintendent at Jacks Point (in Queenstown) became available.”

That got them home where their eldest son Christian was born.  He is now eight while younger brother Campbell is five. 

Taylor was at Jacks Point for 18 months and then The Hills assistant position became available and the idea of having New Zealand Opens there and being a member-based golf course was exciting. 

“Much as I liked Jacks Point, it was quite a different feel there, not having the continuous faces always present, I learned a lot but there was something missing for me. I have been at The Hills ever since (six years) working under Brendan Allen. He is a very experienced and talented greenkeeper and I learned a lot from him which made the transition from when he left to this role (course superintendent) not overly daunting. Its been a case of trying a few things to see what works and looking ahead to the next challenge.”

There is the plan to keep working with Darius Oliver over the coming years and choosing which ideas will benefit the golf course. 

What have been your highlights so far?

“The Opens were exciting, and being there for the 100th New Zealand Open was pretty cool. The redevelopments, striving for excellence, how to improve on what is already very good. We are interacting with the members a lot more and learning what they want from a golf course, finding a balance between making it user friendly but being difficult enough for those who want a challenge.”

So what does the future hold?

“We are very happy here living at Lake Hayes Estate. The children are happy in school and love their skiing and being outdoors.’'

Taylor’s favourite outdoor activities are skiing, mountain biking  and working on his 11.1 golf handicap. Add to this Taylor’s wife Carina works alongside him as financial controller at The Hills. As Taylor says: “You can’t beat it.”