Busy in winter

Its been too long since my last post, but I hope to get a bit more regular in my updates.

So much for winter being the dry season in Brisbane! The past four weeks has seen the course cop another 127mm of rain, we simply have not had a chance to dry out. A case in point is we haven't irrigated the fairways since December last year, the tees and greens have also only needed a drop or two.

Although Gailes is regarded as a very wet weather friendly course, I have seen a few others recently and can agree, but we can always improve. Over the past year or so we have carried out many drainage works, with a lot of it focused on the second and first holes. The works on the second have been a great success and the new works on the first look to be doing the job as well. We still have quite a few areas we would like to complete during the off season, such as around the thirteenth green and left of the fourth fairway.

One area of the course we have had some negative feedback on has been the newly refurbished bunkers on the tenth and seventeenth, with some people believing they are too soft or fluffy. As most golfers would know, bunkers are hazards, and just like water hazards, there are no regulations or recommendations on how they should be maintained. In fact many golf courses around the world are leaning towards low maintenance bunkers to reduce costs.

Jack Nicklaus and Pete Dye, two of the worlds most esteemed golf course designers both state a bunker should be a half shot penalty, so you shouldn't be able to get up and down every second time. But, due to the clubs desire to have the course as consistent as possible, the committee decided to "thicken" up these four bunkers with some different sand. The best advice I can give for bunker play is to avoid them, if you can't, you've played a poor shot, so take your punishment and move to the next hole.

Happy golfing,

Stewart Poole