New opportunities unlocked by prestigious Toro award for young category winner Daniel Martin
There are so many highlights to the Toro Student Greenkeeper of the Year Awards, but one which always resonates is catching up with previous winners to hear how winning has impacted their lives and careers and the effect competing for the award has had on them.
Daniel Martin won the Young Award in 2023 and to say life has been eventful since being crowned champion is quite the understatement. But the biggest takeaway is how Daniel has found the experience of competing in the awards gave him an advantage in the recruitment process.
What has been the impact winning the award has brought?
My career plan always was to start at a small club under a very experienced Greenkeeper and then move to a bigger club to see what quality of turf can be achieved with more resources and higher expectations. Winning the award has fast tracked that process I’d say.
For this reason, leaving Farleigh Golf Club to join the London Golf Club as its new Irrigation Manager, a position of leadership, felt like the natural and logical next step. I feel I am thriving managing a group of people and the role as a whole connects with previous experiences and interests I had.
Do you think competing for the award and winning improved your confidence, helping you in the interview for the new job?
I would definitely say so. The actual winning probably not so much, but the process you go through when competing for the award puts you in a really good position when you’re going for competitive roles within the golf industry.
One of the great things about the Toro award is that it gives you the opportunity to push yourself out of your comfort zone, get experience within a high-pressure environment and perform above the level of your day-to-day greenkeeping role. Normally, you wouldn’t go around with your General Manager being quizzed on the golf course about what you might be doing to improve the turf, but you do exactly that in the awards process. The whole thing is an experience that will prepare you to effectively convey the knowledge you have acquired over many years during a quick job interview.
What did you learn from your Toro Awards experience, and how has it helped your career?
The best thing you learn is being able to have those important conversations with key decision makers in the golf club or in a management environment. In my previous role as First Assistant Greenkeeper, they’re not really the kind of conversations I was involved with. When you move up the career ladder, you must be able to speak with senior staff and clearly convey information about the course. For instance, reasons why you need extra funding or why you need to dig up a certain area in order to conduct a repair. Being able to communicate effectively is invaluable to perform your role well within the club.
As a result of winning the Toro Award, you spent two weeks in France at the Vidauban Golf Club. What can you tell us about this exclusive experience?
It was an eye-opening moment for me. The course made me realise what it was possible to achieve when you’ve got that amount of resources available. It’s not something that I had experienced in my career before spending those two weeks in France.
You try to learn as much as possible and carefully observe all the technology they use, trying to imagine what strategies you can bring back home.
There’s plenty of stuff they do differently as well. I’d say, the biggest thing for me was probably dealing with turf management in a warmer climate – the approach to the agronomic process was entirely different.
For instance, you could get away with being a lot tougher on the greens because, due to the warmer weather conditions, the recovery period is so much shorter. It gave me a whole new perspective on what you can do with turf and how courses here in the UK manage their surfaces.
Any advice for future award applicants?
Put your heart behind your application. If you do decide to apply, sit down and think about what you can do to improve yourself to get in the best possible position to actually be able to win. It’s a process you want to make the most of and an opportunity you don’t want to miss.
Put 100 percent effort into everything you do, because everyone else will. It’s a beautiful but very competitive environment and it’s not worth coming away with regrets of what could have been.
If you think you have what it takes to be the next winner – or you know someone who does – here you can learn more about who can apply for the 2025 Toro Awards and how to submit the application.