His playing surface may currently resemble the Sahara Desert, but Graeme Mathie is a not a man running dry on ambition.
Ayr United's managing director insists the club's brand new pitch - subject to a major summer renovation - will reward the latest investment at Somerset Park.
Just days ahead of diggers rolling in to begin work on a new North Stand, tractors carefully tend the surface which Mathie readily admits has been long overdue some TLC.
A substantial five figure sum is being spent on overhauling United's pitch this close season - work so drastic that Ayr have been forced to shift their first competitive home game of the new campaign in the Viaplay Cup.
United will take on Stenhousemuir at Cumnock in mid July as the final blades of newly laid grass take hold at Somerset. But that disruption is a small price worth paying, admits Ayr's MD, for what will follow in the years to come.
Mathie told the Ayrshire Post: "As a club we're making a significant investment here on something from which we will hopefully feel the benefit for the next few years.
"There were a couple of times during the past season where the pitch maybe didn't present as well as we'd have liked for that time in the season, so we've looked into that and got to the bottom of the issues.
"The top layer of turf was taken off which revealed the thatch beneath which was hindering drainage. That has been taken away and a whole new seeding process is now underway. In two weeks' time there will be people on this pitch cutting grass, which is amazing to think looking at it now.
"Some teams will do this sort of work on a yearly basis, but for a club like us to do this will hopefully take us to that next level. It helps with all manner of things like attracting players, having a more consistent playing surface for longer in the season - and stops me going out there in my suit in the middle of winter to fork the pitch trying to get a game on an hour before kick off!"
While Mathie can afford a wry grin in the summer sun, the image of him sloshing around a sodden pitch was clearly among the incidents to focus minds in the Somerset boardroom.
He said: "Our director Willie Houston and his brother, Stuart, look after the pitch and work closely with our groundsman, Jason. When the issues were arising during the season, they advised that this would be the best course of action to tackle the problems.
"We're confident that this piece of work will address the issues and give us a surface for the players to go and enjoy. And I do still think players prefer playing matches on grass. I hear a lot these days that people prefer a good astro over a bad grass surface - but the surface at Somerset was always famed going back a number of years and we want to get back to that.
"At our level it's not something we can feasibly do each season, but this kind of renovation is certainly something that can give us significant improvement for the next five years or so.
"A pitch is both an art and a science and I've learned more about groundskeeping in the last 12 months than I thought was possible. The pitch is something that will always attract a lot of conversation among the football staff and players and we have been conscious of the need to improve things as much as possible - hopefully we're well on our way now."
