“Getting up with the sunrise and getting going, I just love it” – Elin Foyle gets a bit carried away when she talks about the benefits of her job. The 24-year-old from Chieming in Upper Bavaria, Germany, is a greenkeeper, or assistant head greenkeeper to be precise. Grass defines her working day – but anyone who thinks that working with the green blades alone is just one thing – mindless grass cutting – is mistaken. “There’s always something different going on out there on the golf course, every day brings new challenges.”
The 24-year-old is getting to know the world with her greenkeeping job: As one of the scholarship holders of the annual FEGGA program, she was allowed to work at the renowned Kristianstad’s Golf Club in Sweden for six months at the expense of the European Greenkeeping Association together with the other six scholarship holders, was taught there by numerous experts from the golf industry and built up a large network. At the DP World Tournament Betfred British Masters at The Belfry, she stood on the course early in the morning together with the other greenkeepers and prepared it for the tournament. “It gave me a lot of confidence that I was allowed to do it myself and was solely responsible,” she says. “People just trusted me.” Her next goal in the fall is the Solheim Cup at the Bernardus Golf Resort in the Netherlands. “I already know the greenkeeper there quite well,” she explains. It will be another international experience for the German, who wanted one thing above all else after school – to get out into the world.
“I was just everywhere and did the strangest jobs, like being a real estate agent in Egypt,” she recalls. “But in the end, I was drawn back to the golf course.” She has known it since childhood. “My father was head greenkeeper, I was kind of thrown into greenkeeping and didn’t really have a chance.” When she was 15, she got her first temporary jobs on the Chieming golf course during the vacations or at weekends.
She is now extremely happy with her career choice. “Business changes very quickly, so you can’t get comfortable and you always have to be up to date.” She also realized this during her scholarship in Sweden, where she had to work on a challenging water management project together with another student. The duo had to talk to experts from the companies, test new methods for measuring soil moisture and define their own solution strategy. “You really had to get out of your comfort zone,” she sums up. The fact that she was the only woman and had to get along with six men from different countries was also not easy. “You also learn a lot about people as part of a scholarship like this; that’s pretty important in borderkeeping teams.”
Back in Chieming, Elin Foyle is now familiar with all the new technology that many greenkeepers in Germany have never had to deal with before. Whether it’s satellite-controlled soil moisture measurement or the USGA’s DEACON ball, which collects data on the firmness of the ground surface, for example, the 24-year-old has received first-class training. She has a very good 18-hole golf course to look after, for which average resources are available. Is a significantly smaller budget a real setback after the stay in Kristianstad, where the students had access to the latest machinery and technology? “No, the higher art is to achieve a lot with few resources,” she says. “You have to dig in a lot more.”
However, Elin Foyle will continue to review the top courses in Europe. Her greenkeeper network is now extensive. In an industry in which the exchange of information is extremely valuable, she scores highly as a greenkeeper with experience beyond Germany’s borders. This is exactly what the greenkeeping job has now opened up for her. Elin Foyle has combined the best of two worlds: Looking out over the Upper Bavarian landscape at sunrise in Chieming in the morning – and at the same time networking with colleagues from all over
