YOU could say it was Hall signed, sealed and delivered for the man charged with keeping the area's newest golf club up to scratch.

Less than two months ago Sandburn Hall Golf Club at Flaxton opened to rave reviews and at the helm of its cutting edge is course manager Brian Hall.

As he surveys his woodland domain, the Geordie greenkeeper cannot contemplate a better environment in which to work. After several years away from his North-East roots tending a top-notch course on the Isle of Man, Hall is back on the mainland and installed at a golfing heartland he is proud to call his new home.

"It's a champion course. I've been here almost from the beginning and have been involved in the construction of the course. Now it's up and running and it is in excellent shape," he enthused.

"But now I want to see this place become great. I remember saying to Mike Hogg (the man whose dream the course was) just before he died last year that this place is going to be something special and I fully believe it will."

Looking over the three decades before he arrived at Sandburn Hall, the 49-year-old revealed how at the outset he never foresaw a life in golf tending greens and fairways, building bunkers and tees, constructing new projects from the cutting of the very first sod. Indeed, it was quite accidental how he came into golf.

Hailing from Houghton-le-Spring, Hall originally planned to take up an apprenticeship towards a trade. His first crack at being a joiner lasted two weeks until a friend of his father invited him to work at Houghton-le-Spring Golf Club. By the time he was 17 he was head greenkeeper at the private members' course heading a three-strong greens-tending force and attending college towards securing essential green-keeping qualifications.

After six years he was recruited to the Durham City GC. That entailed his first attempts a major course construction work, including bunker-building and drainage. "It was never easy, but I didn't want it to be easy, I just loved the job," he explained.

After six years his North-East pilgrimage continued to Hexham GC, one of Northumberland's leading clubs. Included in his work there was a 'hollow-tining' programme, which meant three times a year machine-forking the greens for three years. His tenure at Hexham lasted five years before a brief spell at Huniley Hall at Saltburn just after it was built to oversee the growing and seeding of the course. Coincidentally the architect of that course was Bryan Moor, who he later encountered again as the designer of Sandburn Hall.

But before that re-acquaintance, Hall broke from his Tyneside roots to link up as head greenkeeper at the Mount Murray Country Club owned by millionaire property developer Albert Gubay on the Isle of Man.

"That was an experience for Mr Gubay was one who did not mind mucking in to do hard graft himself, even if he was worth millions," recalled Hall. "If you worked hard he appreciated you and that feeling was mutual between us."

Hall was to spend almost ten years there, enjoying transforming the course into one of the best in the Isle of Man. But because it was one of eight courses on the island there were plainly not enough members to go round, especially with holiday-making golfers more frequently heading for tee-treat packages to Spain, Portugal and America.

So when the Sandburn Hall job was advertised Hall applied and immediately found a kindred spirit in the late Mike Hogg, of Hogg the Builders' fame, and who sadly died six months before his vision of a new course in North Yorkshire opened.

Said Hall, who now heads a six-strong team including his son Andrew: "Mike was quality. Even when it was just acres of flat grass he could see what it could be. The only sadness was that he never saw the course come to fruition. But the rest of his family, who are involved in the course, are just as committed to making it one of the best."

Updated: 09:49 Saturday, September 03, 2005