It all started two years ago in my new office and brew room at Lymm Golf Club. Moving from our old static caravan to the new facilities didn’t take long. Toasters, kettles, mugs and the like we bought new. But paperwork, archives and records we boxed up and transferred across.

While unpacking and organising catalogues and trade sales literature I realised most were out of date or redundant. That was the light bulb moment! What if every catalogue in our industry was in one place? Stupid idea, I thought, it will never work, impossible! Thank goodness we have Google.

Since 2008, when the world tightened its belt, golf clubs have struggled financially. Everyone is trying to save pennies, and more quotes are needed to satisfy the demand for budgetary transparency. But I had less time to spend researching, because of staff cuts and I didn’t have the luxury of time after work to chat to sales guys. I needed a personal assistant (or greenkeeping butler) but on my budget, I couldn’t see that happening. 

Then my old grey matter started smoking. If all catalogues in our trade, with technical sales contact numbers, were in one place, it would be easy to find information. Maybe I could get quotes from guys I deal with already, without making several calls about a bottle of Rescue or Primo. It would become our very own greenkeeping Google. 

But creating it was a mammoth task. We had to design a system, not just a website. We had to write a brief of how it would work, for the trade and the turf professionals, ready for someone to build it. Then we had to speak to every relevant company and dealer in the UK and ask them if they wanted to put all their catalogues in one big website. This is the hard bit – but folk seemed to get it. It’ll be just like Rightmove or Autotrader for greenkeepers, we said.

With every dealer and manufacturer in our ‘locker’, finding the right product for your problem is easy. Type ‘fusarium’ and the locker will identify every product available to treat the disease, and give details of your nearest sales agents. With one e-mail, you can contact them all for quotes. You can even store the quotes in lists to help your future planning.

Tom’s Locker never wants to sell you anything: it’s not a buying group or a shop. Its a free to use introduction site directing you to folks that can help you, in one giant digital bookcase.

We needed some rules. I’m happy to research online but prefer to deal with the great people in the trade who I have relationships with – guys who can walk my course with me, share successes and sorrows and provide great technical support. Tom’s Locker needs to maintain and encourage that. And we don’t need a spy in the camp, running back and whispering into the ear of suppliers, so they can send salespeople round en masse. It’s important that, asusers, we are in charge of how we’re contacted and what information is shared.

We also need to protect the guys some deem a necessary evil, those who walk half a mile onto our courses to offer us the latest deals (and steal our biscuits). We couldn’t do our jobs without them and their companies. It’s important they are represented properly in the Locker, and their reputations maintained. 

So, the brief was set, the concept researched and the feedback good. It was at this point I freaked! This was my pension and my children’s (small) inheritance potentially up in smoke. I’ve spent the last 20 years talking about grass, soils and golf; I knew nothing about the business world. But a metaphorical hand guided me down the right path.

Paula, my wife, took my crazy idea and made it professional, a business to help greenkeepers like me. She wrote business plans, formed the company and became my partner in Tom’s Locker. If it weren’t for her, Tom’s Locker would still just be an idea in a crazy greenkeeper’s head.

But we still had to fund and build the site, and we knew it was vital to be totally independent, so, after we remortgaged our house, the team at Reckless New Media set about building Tom’s Locker in May 2013. 

After an extensive period of testing, making sure that everything works, we launched the site last November. We’re proud to be supporting BTME in January 2014 where we’ll be happy to meet and take people inside the Locker. We hope you like using Tom’s Locker, and it becomes part of your team – your extra member of staff that helps you make time for the turf you love. 

Many have asked: why call it Tom’s Locker? Well, we all have a locker in our lives, and have you ever met a bad Tom?