The Rowes Bay maintenance crew (from left) Justin Abdul, Michael Sollitt, Jason Bushell (superintendent), Brendan Lowe (assistant superintendent), Sam Tully and Dean Zahner Give us an overview of Rowes Bay GC and some of its unique characteristics? Rowes Bay consists of an 18-hole golf course and a nine-hole par 3 course. It is a very flat course with only a few bunkers, but quite a bit of rough and hazard area. The front nine is quite tight but the back nine is fairly open. We have just started a course improvement programme where we are resurfacing/rebuilding some greens and adding bunkers. There is quite a bit of wildlife with most of the dams having barramundi in them (a 93cm one was caught just recently). What are some of the unique features about Rowes Bay GC from a turf management perspective? Is it an easy/hard facility to manage? It can be quite challenging for a number of reasons. The weather can be quite extreme with high disease pressure in summer. There are several different profiles for greens so this can make it a little difficult with different management techniques needed for some greens. Also the fact we are just above sea level and very flat, it doesn’t take a lot for the course to be flooded.
Outline any major course improvement works recently completed and/or highlight any ongoing or future works that the club is undertaking. The club has just put a strategic plan in place which is going to include a long-term course improvement plan. This is going to try and eventually flood proof the course which in the long-term will increase revenue. The first part of the project will be two greens, some fairway bunkers and tee rebuilds. The greens we are working on at the moment are actually going to be a California style construction. They have Megaflo drainage pipe with the sock left on and
Lowe displays his recent ‘catch of the day’ from the course dam
Rowes Bay Golf Club’s closing hole is a 135m par three
Any special environmental considerations that you have to incorporate into the management of the course? There is quite a bit of wildlife on the golf course so we do our best not to disturb the native animals too much. We are also surrounded by a national park so we have to be careful we don’t cause any disruption to this area. January-February 2014
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Take us through your turf management operations at Rowes Bay and how you have fine-tuned them during your time as superintendent. We cut greens most days with the odd break on some Mondays. Greens are rolled between 2-4 times a week and in winter this allows us to skip some cutting. Tees are cut weekly with Primo applied monthly almost all year round. Fairways are cut every week unless it is too wet. We use Primo as needed probably every 4-5 weeks for about nine months of the year. The biggest changes implemented would be to the fairways. They have been shaped now with a step cut so they are easily identified. They have Primo applied regularly. We spend a lot of time eradicating weeds, particularly crowsfoot, and we have just began using pre-emergent on them. I have also introduced an approach cut which is done twice a week. The surrounds are cut weekly almost all year round with a cylinder mower. When I first started surrounds were just cut with deck mowers, there was no approach cut, greens were only rolled on special occasions and there was no definition of the fairways.
What are some of the major challenges facing Rowes Bay GC both from a turf management and general club management perspective? The challenges are probably similar to most clubs with not enough funds to cover costs. We are a very high traffic course and also very affordable compared to some courses. Due to the warm climate, if buggies aren’t allowed on the course then the golfers just don’t come, so if we have a bad wet season the revenue takes a big hit. From a turf management perspective a fair area of the course is only just above sea level so the ground is very salty and the back nine in particular can be difficult to maintain due to excess salt. After heavy rain or any sort of excess water, a white film of salt can be seen on the surface in certain areas.