Course & Maintenance

Afternoon sun over the 18th green and Clubhouse Photo: David Brand

It is expected that COVID-19 will continue to have an impact on the Financials into 2021/2022, with the Club in a strong financial position to face challenges into the new year.

It was an uncertain start to the year with the arrival of COVID-19. Pleasingly, we were able to adapt our maintenance practices in order to keep the course to the highlevel expected by our Members throughout the restriction periods. Our team was split into two, to adhere to capacity restrictions and to ensure the continuity of course maintenance, with teams working every second day for twelve-hour shifts on a fourteen-day roster. This changing landscape gave us the opportunity to engage Ryan Van Der Veen, who has extensive experience around the world with golf course design and construction. With Ryan’s assistance, our team renovated approximately twenty bunkers, lowering the access points to improve Member access in and out of bunkers. This work has been well received and gave us a chance to address an ongoing issue for many of our Members. Over the course of the year, we experimented on the short game practice area using artificial turf as an alternative to natural revetting for bunkers. The results thus far have proven it to be a viable alternative which will enable us to retain this key feature of the golf course and make maintenance and upkeep a more sustainable prospect. Our greens were renovated in September with the assistance of external contractors, and the annual fairway and tee renovations were undertaken in-house in early December. Agronomic benefits to our turf surfaces have meant that they have withstood the pressures of extra rounds due to the COVIDinduced golf boom. Other key projects this year have been: • continual work to upgrade the front entrance • path works and carry works at the 11th hole • riparian works at the 8th and 18th holes to clean water hazard edges • tree works at the 6th, 7th and 19th holes • ASR auditing and a tender to formulate future works plans • irrigation system redesign During the year we undertook planning for future course works and course enhancement projects. The course enhancement project is being driven by the need to replace our ageing irrigation system. In this year alone, more than $30,000 in labour for repairs and maintenance, as well as approximately $40,000 for parts and repairs, has been spent on our irrigation system. Improvements in irrigation will have multiple benefits on reducing our current water usage, savings on electricity for pumping and a reduction in maintenance of the rough and out-of-play areas through targeted irrigation. Around 800 native plants were planted this season with most plantings successful and will be enhanced with further ongoing plantings. This included a National Tree Day event, with volunteers and staff planting an area between the 9th and 10th holes. These plantings are part of a biodiversity corridor between the 9th and 11th holes with plants establishing well. Our Club was among twentyfive clubs in Australia chosen to

participate in a one-year Golf Course Sustainability Project. Other clubs on the list include Royal Sydney, Bonnie Doon and Metropolitan. The project is run in conjunction with the Australian Sports Turf Managers’ Association (ASTMA) and the GEO Foundation, an international sustainable golf organisation, to review and tailor the OnCourse® sustainability platform for the Australian environment.

In November 2020, we held our first ‘Grazing the Course’ dinner with renowned chef and Club Member, Andrew Fielke, cooking with ingredients harvested from our course. The dinner received great publicity with our Biodiversity Manager, Monina Gilbey, joining Andrew in an interview on ABC891 and Minister David Speirs, MP, attending the dinner. An article about the dinner was printed in the Australian Turfgrass Magazine. The GEO Foundation shared a post about the dinner on their social media and the dinner was voted as the best worldwide sustainable golf highlight of 2020. A beehive with bees, donated by John Rawson, has been set up near the plant nursery. This year we had our first harvest of three kilograms of honey. Some of the honey was used in the Clubhouse kitchen, while small pots of honey were given to our volunteers and Minister David Speirs, MP – who posted on social media about our activities.

COVID-19 saw a three-month hiatus for the Friends of the Course. One of our volunteers, John Wainwright, took the opportunity to remove and renovate the course ball washers. This year, volunteers have assisted with emptying rubbish bins and filling sand bins; sanding and staining course furniture; removing weedy plant species; raking scarifyings during renovations; and raking of pine needles and pine cones. Our volunteers contributed over 541 hours of time to compliment work being undertaken by course staff. We are very appreciative of the assistance contributed by this group. This year, we set up course specific social media accounts which include a wide variety of photos ranging from course works to biodiversity activities to scenic pictures of the course. Using social media not only promotes the work we are doing at our course to our Members, it also brings external attention to some of the projects being completed. Our honey harvest has been mentioned in podcasts, while other posts have also been shared by the GEO Foundation, Turf Today and the ASTMA.

Our team had several changes throughout the year, mentioned in more detail, later in the report. With the loss of some long-term staff members, we were able to engage some new members, and begin to rebuild a team that encompasses new skills. We thank our staff and volunteers for their adaptability and their patience. We have a strong team with a broad range of skills that position us well as we prepare for the enhancement works and future planned projects to improve our course.

This year volunteers contributed over 541 hours of time helping out around the course Photo: Monina Gilbey