IT'S a fair bet Mark Mennell knows every blade of grass intimately at Fulford Golf Club.

The head greenkeeper this week clocked up 40 years of service at the famous Heslington course and has no plans yet to switch off the ignition on his lawn-mower.

Arriving at Fulford almost immediately after leaving St George's Academy for Young Boys in Walmgate - "I didn't even complete the six-weeks holiday you get in summertime. I had only done a week" - Mennell rose through the ranks and has held the top job there since 1989.

He worked through the heyday of the Benson & Hedges International Trophy, strimming bunkers and cutting greens, while the likes of Seve Ballesteros, Bernhard Langer and Lee Trevino strode the fairways.

And he continues to maintain the course to the elite standards that brings top tournaments flooding to Fulford, with the announcement only this week that the Carris Trophy, the English Boys Under-18 Open Amateur Strokeplay, will arrive in 2018.

Asked what the key was to the job, Mennell, a long-time playing member at Heworth GC, said: "The main thing, I find, is that somebody who is in charge has got to play the game of golf. All the lads are capable and we all work together as a team but you have got to know what the golfer wants.

"That's why it is great for me being a member at Heworth."

Having first cut the Fulford grass in 1975, 56-year-old Mennell has seen huge changes in the tools he uses. He is now helping to oversee alterations to the Charles MacKenzie-designed course first constructed 80 years ago.

"The machinery has changed," he added. "The machinery that cuts fairways these days cuts it tight and goes into sharp undulations. Going back to the 70s and early 80s, the equipment didn't get into some of the pretty severe dips."

And on the course investment programme, Mennell continued: "In all my years here, it's the biggest visual change that we have seen. It is not just the bunkering. It is bringing the ruggedness of heathland back into it. Since 1997, we have been treating the rough and thinning out the lush green, parkland, grasses and we have been trying to eradicate that.

"If you had been here ten to 15 years ago, taken a photograph and had a look now, it is a massive change. The challenge is trying to keep it to the standards. This place has got 50-plus category one golfers. It is trying to keep it right for everybody."

Fulford, consistently ranked in the top 100 courses in the country, held 23 consecutive European Tour events in the 70s, 80s and early 90s - and Mennell played a key part.

He said: "I did 14 Benson & Hedges, the Sun Alliance and the Murphy's Cup and the Ladies British Open. I always remember there was a practice day at the Benson & Hedges and Warren Humphreys was practising in a three-ball.

"I was on the fifth green cutting it with a hand machine. It was early morning, about 6am, and a ball comes down and lands and then another one. It was right on the next line of my cut.

"So I went over and kicked it out of the way and then, as I am cutting, I can hear this shouting and bawling. I carried on and they came over and they'd had a bet on who would be nearest the pins on the par threes as they were going round - and I'd kicked the ball away."

As a greenkeeper, Mennell has endured a lifetime of early morning starts. But, even after four decades, he dismisses the idea of looking forward to lie-ins.

"I am body-clocked," he explained. "I am up at 4.15am every morning. I think about the day ahead. I have always looked forward to coming to work. It is great. If the body takes it (I will carry on to 50 years).

"I still keep myself hands-on. People say 'just delegate'. I can't do it. The other day I was strimming bunkers and people look at you like 'what are you doing strimming bunkers?' but I like to do it."