COURSES COURSES
The greens reconstruction project at Kew has been a key component of a seven year goal to improve the course and playing conditions for members. Pictured is second year apprentice Fraser Heron-Paterson cutting the 13th green for the first time after being resurfaced
Kew’s
new look
Starting in mid-2016 and finishing May 2017, Kew Golf Club undertook an audacious greens replacement project which has seen all surfaces reconstructed to USGA specifications and grassed with MacKenzie bentgrass. Course superintendent Cameron Hall looks back on what has been a busy start to his tenure at the club. 20
O
ver the last seven years Kew Golf Club in Melbourne’s inner eastern suburbs has invested heavily on the course and its playing surfaces. With a clear drive and vision to return Kew to its former glory, the course has seen some dramatic changes. Under the guidance of course architect Graeme Grant, fairways were drained, re-contoured and sand capped in order to make playable all year round, while bunkers were reconstructed, drainage and matting installed and rough, jagged edges incorporated into the finished product. As a result the course has changed its look and feel quite dramatically. Initially the club did not touch the greens surfaces, but in the years that followed a number of greens were rebuilt as the club strove to continually improve. After my commencement at Kew in September 2015, having replaced long-term and highly respected superintendent Adam Robertson, I presented a proposal to the board of directors that instead of following the strategic plan goal of completing three greens a year, we should embark on a project whereby we completed the remaining 12 greens over the next 16 months. Having a course with six pure bentgrass greens and the remaining old Poa annua push-ups presented a number of agronomic difficulties and a
AUSTRALIAN TURFGRASS MANAGEMENT 19.3
major lack of uniformity in the putting surfaces for the members to play on. The major issue was the condition of the older greens in winter as they would become extremely soft due to the high thatch levels and lack of drainage. With the major backing of the board, led by captain John Doggett, and chief executive Mathew Loughnane, we began the process of informing the membership of our plan and how it would be carried out. Despite initial fears on the feedback we would receive, the vast majority of it was positive with members happy to put up with one year of pain instead of intermittent disruptions over the next four years. During this period we had also engaged Paul Jones from Ways with Water to do a complete audit on our aging irrigation system which was continually causing problems (regular blowouts and a lack of distribution uniformity being the major issues). Paul came back to the club with the recommendation that we needed a complete upgrade of the whole system in the next 2-3 years. Discussion was then held in regards to running both the irrigation install and greens reconstruction projects concurrently and after being approved by the board we went to tender with A&M Irrigation, led by Brendan Graham, being successful for the install of the new Toro decoder system.