PGA PGA
High praise for
Royal Pines
For the fifth consecutive year RACV Royal Pines Resort played host to the Australian PGA
WORDS AND PHOTOS: BRETT ROBINSON
Championship last December.
RACV Royal Pines Resort was lauded for its conditioning during the 2017 Australian PGA Championship. Pictured is the 4th
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f you want it to rain on the Gold Coast, just hold a golf tournament. For many years that has been the running joke among the golf course superintendent community there and true to form pretty much every time that RACV Royal Pines has hosted a major event the weather has conspired. RACV Royal Pines course superintendent Lincoln Coombes is well accustomed to the fickle weather that often prevails for such events and normal service seemingly resumed in the lead-up to last December’s 2017 Australian PGA Championship. After 30mm during the lead-in week, a further 23mm fell during Thursday’s opening round which meant the surfaces were at field capacity. That affected the players out early on the opening day, including tournament drawcard and current Masters
AUSTRALIAN TURFGRASS MANAGEMENT 20.1
champion Sergio Garcia, and for Coombes it meant having crew members on standby to squeegee water off some of the greens. Come the weekend, however, all the focus was on Sunday. With the Bureau of Meteorology predicting rain and storms to arrive after lunchtime, tournament organisers brought the start time forward by three hours to negate any chance of the weather ruining the finish. That meant a two-tee start at 6am, with the leaders starting their final rounds at 8am. Normally the weekend rounds are a little more relaxed for the tournament crew, with generally later one-tee start times. However, there was no such luxury this time and after 3.30am-4am starts all week the RACV Royal Pines crew were back in at 3am to prepare the course for the final round. Just to make