TOURNAMENTS
United Nations of
The Australian
Wearing face masks, blowing ash and charred leaves off greens… it was an Emirates Australian Open to remember for the diverse crew at The Australian Golf Club last December.
S
ince migrating from the UK back in 2005, Phil Beal has had plenty of time to acclimatise to the vagaries of Australia’s (and Sydney’s) fickle weather. His first superintendent posting was at Twin Creeks Golf and Country Club in Sydney’s western suburbs, which as anyone will tell you can get brutally hot during the peak of summer. But in the 10 years since taking over as custodian of The Australian Golf Club, he can’t quite recall more surreal conditions than what prevailed the week of last December’s 2019 Emirates Australian Open.
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AUSTRALIAN TURFGRASS MANAGEMENT 22.1
After a challenging lead-in thanks to a very dry and relatively cool spring, come the week of the tournament Beal, as well as tournament officials, were thrown a curveball out of left field. Fanned by westerly winds, the bushfires raging to the west of Sydney and up on the Central Coast at the time sent a choking smoke plume which blanketed the harbour city pretty much the entire week. With air quality officially rated hazardous, the smoke was that thick in the early part of the week that some of The Australian crew resorted to wearing face masks as they went about their preparations. Conditions hadn’t