Simon Hutton, Managing Director of Tillers Turf
With extensive experience in the Sports Turf Industry, Simon Hutton dubbed the ‘UK Turf Master’ now has over 2,500 acres of sports turf in production. Simon’s operation supplies most of the turf and pitches for almost all the top stadiums and sports across the UK. Tillers Turf also owns several golf courses and has a strong focus on improving turf products for the industry. Simon’s turf farm and his approach to turf farming is one of the best you will ever see.
We recently caught up with Simon during his recent visit to Australia as a guest speaker for the Lawn Solutions Australia Global Turf Conference.
Simon Hutton – Born in Lincolnshire UK, in 1978
My father was PGA Head Professional Golfer at Sleaford Golf Club, Lincolnshire. His dream was always to build and run his own golf course. In 1986 a small pocket for land came up for sale, 8 miles up the road, in a small village called Carlton Scroop. It comprised a farmyard, with 17 acres of pasture land attached. We gang-mowed the field with a Massey Ferguson 135 and a set of Ransomes Gang Mowers. We mowed out 6 Greens with a Ransomes Certes, cut some holes, bought some cups, pins and flags, made some tee markers by filling coke cans with concrete and a 6-inch nail, added a couple of coats of paint and we were away. The system Dad implemented was an honesty box at the entrance and the fee was £1 for a full day’s golf… After a successful 9 months, Dad was able to leave his Head Pro’s job and dedicate all his time to Carlton Scroop, teaching daily and carrying out course maintenance and development, while converting the stone barn in the farmyard to be the family home.
In 1990, Dad and Mum bought an additional 20 acres adjoining the existing 17 acres and that summer we constructed 9 greens, tees, and fairways. This was the start of Sudbrook Moor Golf Club as we know it today. During this construction period at age 11, I helped Dad with the earthworks, ploughing, cultivation, seeding and the ‘grow-in.’ In the summer of 1992, we opened a new layout of the course, renamed Sudbrook Moor.
My contracting started in 1993, aged 13, mowing lawns and selling firewood. At age 15 I grew my first field of turf, on one acre – approximately 4,000m2. My friends were doing a paper round 6 mornings a week for £4, while I was harvesting a pallet of turf with a Ryan Turf Cutter on a Saturday morning for £50.
I left school in 1995, already with loads of construction, turf care and turf production experience. A member of our golf club approached me, he wanted me to spray his greens at the local RAF base where he volunteered as a greenkeeper. I quoted him £350, won the job and that’s where the outside contracting began. A year later when I was 17, our local Sisis Rep, Jason Briggs, recommended me to Grimsby Town Football Club. It was a very wet winter and they needed 20 tonnes of sand spreading on the pitch. With our lightweight 16hp Massey Ferguson compact tractor and Sisis Powerspread, we carried out the work and everything went well. I charged £400, realising at this point that, there was probably some mileage in contracting, compared with only earning £55 per week working on the golf course at home.
I printed some flyers and mailed them out to every golf course in Lincolnshire. Within 3 weeks I had about a 10% response, which was really incredible. I then quickly invested in a Wiedenmann Terra Spike and an Ifor Williams trailer and expanded the turf production up to 10 acres – 40,000m2.
The contracting was steadily growing through Lincolnshire while expanding further afield. In 1998 we were asked to hollow core and collect the outfield at Lords Cricket Ground, St John’s Wood, London. In 1999-2003 we were involved in the re-turfing of Manchester United, Old Trafford. Things were now starting to happen. In 2002 the Head Groundsman of Manchester United, Keith Porter, said to me, “If you buy a Koro Field Topmaker you can Fraize Mow all 18 pitches at Carrington Training Grounds.” I bought a Koro, and a 120hp Massey Ferguson, and had made two dump trailers by that time. In May 2003 we carried out these works on the 18 pitches. 20 years on, in 2023, we are still working for Manchester United, carrying out 100% of their end-of-season renovations and construction projects. This year, at Lords, 25 years on, after multiple projects, we are continuing to successfully carry out all their end-of-season renovations and, this Autumn, we are to reconstruct the Nursery Ground.
In 2005 we created Lakeland Specialist Earthworks, with Wayne Freeman, a well-respected golf course shaper. We started with one 14-tonne excavator and a dumper. With gradual growth, we now have a huge fleet of heavy plant and Lakeland compliments Tillers all over the UK. Lakeland is involved in all the UK contracting projects and also in our own home location infrastructure works.
In 2007 Fineturf Machinery Limited was born. We were finding that on our travels there were offers of good quality second-hand equipment for sale. In turn, we also had equipment to sell to our existing and new clients. A huge growth within this business came when the Ministry of Defence changed its Grounds Maintenance Contractor and we bought, refurbished and sold over 650 machines. In the golf world, John Deere was becoming very successful in some big fleet deals and we followed them around and bought most of the ex-service Toro Equipment from golf clubs at The Belfry, Woburn, Gleneagles, Wentworth and many more. This equipment was then refurbished and sent out globally. To this day, we call it “Second Life Equipment”, run by Tom Moor. Globally we are still prominent in the Second Life market for golf and landscape equipment.
In 2011, I bought Tillers Turf, which was a well-established 300-acre turf production site. It had a great reputation, supplying heavily into the Golf and Landscape market. In the last 12 years we have grown that business, and we are now in production of 26 different turf products and 6 mainstream Wildflower Turf Products. This equates to production of 2,200 acres – 10,000,000 m2. Heading up the turf production is Alan Whiteley, celebrating this summer 25 years’ service at Tillers. Alan is supported by our Golf and Technical Manager, Richard Owens, along with a well-oiled and dedicated Golf, Football, Landscape Production and Harvest Teams.
In the last 5 years at Tillers, we have developed HTPro our Hybrid Turf System. We were originally approached by Tottenham Football Club, close to the end of their new stadium construction project, enquiring about producing a Hybrid Turf Pitch for them. With a lot of research and hard work, we established a pitch in one of our fields. We grew it during the spring/ early summer, harvested it and transported it to the stadium at the end of July 2018. The hard work and dedication of the Specialist Football Team at Tillers had paid off, the pitch was a success. Over the past 4 years, this system has been laid in the Stadia at Swansea, Leeds, MK Dons, Principality and Oxford. Annually, we now produce for Tottenham, Liverpool, London Stadium and 3 per year for Wembley Stadium.
Fineturf, over 20 years, has constructed every UK Cricket Test Wicket and every UK Lawn Tennis Association grass court, including 29 grass courts for AELTC (Wimbledon). All these projects have been managed by Contracts Manager, Jim Coleman, and his Team. In Golf we have carried out successful construction and specialist maintenance projects at 100’s of Golf Courses. Recently we constructed the new 18th green at The Belfry, four times venue of The Ryder Cup. Also, the Titleist Performance Centre at the world-famous Woburn Golf Club and tee reconstruction at Royal St George’s Golf Club (prior to the 2022 British Open), to name just a few. Football pitch construction and maintenance have also been a huge part of the growth of the business, carrying out multiple projects up and down the UK for numerous clients, large and small. Horse Racing contracts have been a lot of fun over the last 29 years, with multiple drainage, levelling and track reconstruction projects, for the likes of Sandown, Epsom, Cheltenham, Doncaster, Newmarket, Haydock, Nottingham, Market Rasen, Huntingdon, Warwick, Uttoxeter, Southwell, Hereford, Chepstow, Great Yarmouth and Leicester Racecourses.
The future is exciting across the group of companies. I am well supported by Co-directors Becky Watson and Wayne Billing. At Tillers, we are custom-growing turf for some new Golf Projects in the UK, including the new Trump Course in Aberdeen, Scotland. HTPro will continue to be developed and expand and we will persist in the innovation of new turf systems, complementing our existing range, for a wide range of clients. At Fineturf, we have much to look forward to – the AELTC Wimbledon is just going through planning permission to redevelop the old Wimbledon Park Golf Club into 29 new construction grass courts. This will include one Show Court and a Community Park, and this project duration is estimated to be 9 years.
Manchester United are also in the planning stages, to either move or redevelop its existing training ground, to produce approximately 34 new world-class pitches, over the next 7 years.
We have so much to look forward to and plenty of existing projects to keep us busy…….
