I’m sure they have the appropriate incident management systems in place. Not good regardless.
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The club would have insurance against this kind of thing, but taking the grass from the 19th hole I’m ok with, but not the new green at Sandringham - that’s a bad look to me.
Spruiking their involvement in Sandringham then pinching turf possibly wouldn’t be a great look, depending on how it was done.
Didn’t Bougle Run have grass issues early on? Seeding the wrong kind or something? Labelling issues might be rife in the Australian golf scene.
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Jeez. Imagine being the person who did that. The moment of realisation…
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The ground staff are pretty heavily involved at Sandy. When I played it, most of the crew I saw were wearing RM branded kit. Also, the signs on the course had the RM logo (see below). I expect they’re the ones who built the putting green and have called in a favour from Sandy. It’s a shame that it will be donating turf though.
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There’s a reason RM wanted the maintenance work at Sandy and agreed to let it use the Sutton’s Mix for the greens.
The generous reasoning would be they wanted public players to get to enjoy RM conditioning.
The pragmatic reasoning would be they wanted to be able to use the same machinery without turf contamination issues.
The cynical reasoning would be they see Sandy as a gigantic turf nursery for mining by RM as and when they need it.
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It more than just the maintenance work though isn’t it? Doesn’t RMGC operate and manage the whole golf facility under a license from the owner (who I assume is Bayside Council)?
So if they cut up sections of turf which affects the revenue at Sandy then it’s their own loss not the councils?
Could be wrong
They don’t own it — they have the contract to operate it.
My point was that their interest was in the maintenance arrangement and the access to the course as a turf nursery for the two RM courses.
Any profit they might make is a rounding error.
With modern agronomy needs and the maintenance practices at RM, I think they had come to need a bigger turf nursery than they had room for on their property and so here we are.
It’s been a fair while though - 2010 was when they took over. Given the first new green only opened for play in 2020 they were definately playing the long game…
Fair point. I’m probably being too uncharitable.
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Going back to this list - played Lonsdale Links this arvo - was very impressed, I like the layout, there are great views, the templates work, they are there but not dominating (could have also been where the flags were) the wind was up which made a couple of holes difficult with my current case of huge snap hooks - but……
It’s not top 20 or 25, it’s good, but it’s not there yet, I’d have at least The Dunes and 13th beach Beach course above it.
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Played it last Sunday and it’s certainly lost some condition post the other times I’ve played it in the last 12 months. I’m guessing a bit of summer holiday traffic is the culprit
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Geoff is Chelty/Vic, not Sandy/RM.
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Yes top 25 in Australia according to GA surprised me. I guess we will see whether AGD concurs when their ratings come out in May.
The concept of template holes is a little foreign in Australia, and it intrigues me.
Seems a quite American concept given it was CB McDonald that started it off there. Wikipedia dubs him “the father of American GCA”.
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The only real photo I took to show one, is 16 with oob fence - which really is on the green - I took the photo as I see that maybe the square greens on slopes are difficult to maintain
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The square greens as well is an interesting one. They arose (as I understand it) for 2 reasons. 1. Hand mowers didn’t do a good job of cutting in circles. 2. Where livestock had to be kept off greens, they used fences. Fencing was square.
Bulding square greens now seems like an anachronism, I guess exceptions apply for this type of “homage”.
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Last week got to spend 2 nights 3 days at Victoria GC again, course is in excellent condition and is a real pleasure to play. Green speeds were fine for me, but the majority of our group basically called them slow - and I think that was intentional due to the heat. My only downside is the bunkers, I know its hard to have consistency across the whole course, but I felt it was a lottery if in a greenside bunker if there was a lot of sand or nothing. The level of service from staff all across the club was top notch, could not have been more helpful. I’m not sure we will be back though, all the prices have gone up (up to $350 a round for guests) which to me pushes it just too far (we did Wickham/Ocean Dunes for less in 2020 with flights)
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Might be a bit of a stretch but is anyone here a member of Kingston Heath? I’ve been keen to play it for years and never had the chance - Happy to reciprocate