Greens & Infrastructure

The Bowls WA Greens and Infrastructure Committee has been lucky to have very dedicated and longstanding volunteer members for a number of years. This stability has allowed the Committee members to build on their knowledge through both club and fellow Committee member exchanges.

I would like to thank each and every one of them for their continued dedication to the important role they fulfill each season. Jim Powell

October inspections can be both rewarding and difficult depending on the state of the surface being inspected. The Greens and Infrastructure Committee members understand how important it is for a club to have their greens ready for the upcoming pennant season and it can be a very difficult conversation to tell a club their greens have not been passed. Thankfully a majority of clubs are willing to work with us to get the desired result for both their club members and visiting players. Committee members have all had experiences where they have seen clubs’ greens not passed at inspection time one year, only to see with the dedication of clubs and either their volunteers and/or greenkeeper, those same greens improve from year to year to become easily passed for Pennant play in the following years. The start of the 2021-2022 season was generally greeted with good greens although grass greens seemed to generally take a little longer than usual to be at the standard clubs desired. A number of clubs either delayed inspections by a week or had to be reinspected before the Pennant season started. There were a number of reasons for this but with the dedication of the greenkeepers and a little help from the weather, a majority of clubs started the season with enough greens to cover their commitment. A couple of clubs were required to make other arrangements to swap home and away games for a period of time in November as they worked on their surfaces. The makeup of Metropolitan Pennant greens continues to grow towards more synthetic greens and less grass greens. Currently synthetic, both carpet and sand filled surfaces, make up approximately 40% of Metropolitan Pennant Greens and that number continues to grow each year and shows little signs of slowing down. While we are currently seeing the increase in new synthetic surfaces, over the next decade we are also likely to see an increase in the need to replace those same surfaces. Unlike grass surfaces that can be continually renovated and regenerated for many years, synthetic surfaces do have a life span and will need to be replaced at some point. Currently there is very little funding available to replace these surfaces. It will be very important for clubs to have a strong financial plan to provide both upkeep, to allow the surface to last as long as possible, and for replacement when it is required. Future Bowls WA Greens and Infrastructure Committee members will need to monitor and consult with clubs when those surfaces start to deteriorate and to make sure plans are in place for when the time comes. There were very few protests of substandard greens during the season, and we hope this is because the surface being played on is at an acceptable standard. As always, we do require clubs to let Bowls WA know if a surface is deteriorating and may need to be reinspected for the good of future games at the venue or when State Events may be allocated to a club based on no adverse reports on their greens. The current Greens and Infrastructure Committee looks like it will be in place for another season as all members have renominated and while I look forward to working with them, myself and all the Committee look forward to working with all the clubs in the future.

JIM POWELL

GREENS & INFRASTRUCTURE