I’m a member of a nice group one course in Sydney. It’s never going to be a world beater, but is well respected among those who have played it. The problem is, it could be a better course with just a few easy changes.

The first step needs to be tree removal on some of the holes.e.g. The 2nd, a mid length dog leg par 4 could benefit greatly my removing the trees on the inside corner, (with the possible addition of some bunkering) allowing people to decide how much of the corner to cut off. It would also alleviate some of the problem of people overshooting the outside of the dogleg onto the next fairway, by allowing more options off the tee.

A few other holes have trees encroaching either side of green entrances, dictating a singular way of playing the hole. While another hole that uses a few large, singular trees in the line of play needs them removed & the fairway moved slightly to the right, adding strategy & options to a somewhat linear par 5.

I believe my club needs to set into place a tree removal plan that will improve the course, before it becomes to difficult a task. I have not approached the committee about this as yet, but plan to do so in the future. Having raised this on my club’s web site forum & received some negative response, my concern is that a few loud voices with little understanding are ruining the future of the course for all.

I am interested to hear from those who have undergone such a plan, or are a member of a club that has done so, or if you have some constructive ideas that might help.

How do I encourage the initiating, & explain the worth of such a program ?

Andrew - any one of four plans can be undertaken.

1. A squad of like-minded golfers wearing balaclavas strikes at midnight, and hammers copper nails, (briefly soaked in hydrochloric acid), into the trunks of the offending trees.

2. Get a small box of matches, on a day where there's a nice westerley wind, and at a point far removed from the Clubhouse, take a 5litre can of two stroke, and, well, you get the rest...

3. Present a well-thought out, and soundly constructed plan to the Board, espousing the strategic value and reason in clearing trees (destined to fail)

4. Get the club to hire Clayts to recontour one green, and do some small bunker repairs, and like magic, your trees will be gone!

MM

Seriously,

There is a great deal of merit to 'managing' the plantings at a course. Don't call the plan 'tree removal', as it has negative connotations. It's tree maintenance.

Overplanting is unhealthy for the course, and diligently governing the species planted, and the number of trees, ensures a healthy course and a healthy tree family. I'll never forget the sight of ten gums planted within a ten square metre area, twenty metres from a green, at a course I visited not long ago. They'll ruin the green surrounds, and ensure that no grass will grow in the vicinity, before robbing one another of nutrients, and ultimately kill each other. This is bound to make tree lovers and tree haters see red equally.

I'd sound out some mates who play courses where the same task has been undertaken, and also consult some arbourists, to see if they are golf-smart and suitable for hire by the Club. Course architects also know a fair but about this topic. Someone here has to have some good documentation and strategies in place.

Getting people on board, and presenting the positives is key. Also - ensuring that tree planting is governed in the long-term, is just as important as uprooting excess trunks now.

Matthew

Mt Lawley in Perth is doing this now.

First step was to commission a comprehensive report by Greening Australia on all the trees on the course to identify those with conservation value and those with weed potential. Fortunately for us, most of the trees we wanted to remove - but not all - were introduced, have weed potential, use vast amounts of water or crowd out native species.

So basically, baffle em with science, but also be prepared to give a little and save the odd little shrub. It is alsways an emotional issue, so you need facts on your side. We are about to chop down 20 or 30 mature river gums (introduced from NSW) to open a hole up, because the alternative would have been the removal of two scrubby little native blackbutts that just happended to be a couple fo hundred years old. The hle would have been vastly better with removal of blackbutts, but the commitee wisely decided that making this concession early on would help them win the war in the end.

How do I encourage the initiating, & explain the worth of such a program ?

get your self onto the greens committee, would be a good start.

the problem is that there are people at every club who think that they can run the place better than the incumbent administration/committee. You just need to be carefull that you are not written off as one of those.

Golf clubs are democracies, so use the proper processes and get yourself votedonto the greens committee.

How do I encourage the initiating, & explain the worth of such a program ?

Golf clubs are democraciesSurely that was a joke.

Eminem, I loved point 4!

I'm sure that even Clayts would smile at that one!

By the way, the committee at RM once did get on the sauce and chainsawed a few trees on 4 west (2 composite of current routing and 15 of the old). They removed two of the big cypress which guarded the dog leg, so there is a precedent for MM's point 1.

I love youse all!
Jerry

Surely that was a joke.

certainly not, and i will remind you of the other point i made.

the problem is that there are people at every club who think that they can run the place better than the incumbent administration/committee.

It all depends on councils, but how can you improve a Dogleg par 4 by REMOVING trees? Surely the trees create the hole?

Depending on the council, if you plan to remove trees, you need to add them elsewhere, or transplant them. For the good of the game, i don't think removing trees is the answer. Golf courses are pretty unenvironmental places with 'foreign' weeds washed into nearby streams in high rain, and 'still' ponds forming with red-green or blue-green algae blooms. For the non-golfer, tree removal is eco-graffitti - and often clubs won't partake due to council backlash.

Btw, which group 1 course are we talking about? If i were you, tread carefully, and just enjoy your golf the way the course presents it.

Fishman Dan,

A lot of golf courses provide the only large areas of green space in otherwise urban environments. I'm not sure the run off from a course is any worse than that of your average surburban street. As for the unenvironmental comment I can introduce you to any number of green keepers who are very environmentally aware and are very proud of the environmental aspects of their courses. That includes the promotion of native flora.

Trees are planted and grow, sometimes in the wrong spots and sometimes over time they infringe on the playing lines. If you want to see tree planting gone mad, venture down to Melbourne and check out Commonwealth where so many trees were planted that it has badly impacted the course from a playability and turf grass point of view. In fact in some places the trees are so over planted and crowded that they are killing each other. Whilst CGC is an extreme there are a large number of courses that would be dramatically improved with a bit of chainsaw work.

To suggest that you just ignore issues on a course because tree removel is seen by some as eco-graffitti is ridiculous. We are not talking about flattening all the trees just removing those that were in most cases planted by clubs themselves, just in the wrong spots.

There is a wonerful essay on tree removel programs in Paul Daley's Golf Architecture, A Worldwide Perspective, Volume 2, you might find it worth reading.

JJ