Photos: Brett Robinson
The Open was Steve Marsden’s first since taking charge at Royal Sydney in December 2012
An old lady called Ethyl
Castle Hill superintendent Martyn Black literally gets his hands dirty clearing out a drain following one of many torrential downpours that caused disruption to the Gloria Jeans NSW Open in November. Providing Black with some ‘helpful’ advice is club captain Lindsay Verdon
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That spell of wet weather during the tournament was in stark contrast to the conditions experienced across Sydney and NSW in the months beforehand. Hot, dry and windy conditions in September and October sparked some of the worst bushfires NSW had seen in decades and for Black it meant some nervous times as he watched his 80 megalitre irrigation dam between the 17th and 18th holes drop to levels not seen before. Despite receiving 900KL a day from the local treatment plant, Black was pumping out 2ML a day to keep his kikuyu fairways, Santa Ana tees and bentgrass/Poa greens alive, effectively meaning the dam was dropping 1.1ML a day plus evaporation. So low was the dam that at one stage Black stripped off and jumped in to see how much there was between the floating pump and the dam floor. All that changed, however, come the tournament and the wet conditions that prevailed undid a lot of the good work that Black and his crew had instituted in the lead-up to the event. Having talked the tournament organisers around to increasing green speeds from the initially requested 9.5 to 10.5,
the resulting rain meant Black struggled to get the greens stimping at 10 all week. With weather delays throwing the playing schedule into disarray, two tee starts at 6.30am were necessary on both Saturday and Sunday, meaning greens were only given a single cut at 3mm. And in what Black is claiming as some sort of record, the wet conditions meant he didn’t mow fairways at all over the four days.
Photo: Belinda Hill, Perception PR
feedback has certainly been positive and hopefully we’ll see it back here again next year.”
January-February 2014
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