Heavy rainfall to affect local golf competition

The Bournemouth area is predicted to have strong winds and heavy rainfall ahead of Round 1 of the Peter Alliss Young Masters – meaning groundskeeper Dave Smith will have his work cut out.

The competition starts this Sunday at Bulbury Woods golf course.

Bulbury Woods is an 18-hole tree lined golf course based in Dorset, which is always in perfect condition thanks to head groundskeeper Smith and his team.

Smith has been a groundskeeper for seven years and Head Groundskeeper for five years at Bulbury Woods.

Smith said: “At this time of year, it’s hard to keep the speed up so the greens are getting a bit slower. We have temporary greens on nine of our holes.”

Heading into the winter, it’s harder to keep the course at competition level due to weather conditions.

“We started cutting the fairways on Monday and it was only today that we finished them because of the rain.”

“We are halfway through October and already had 100 millilitres of rain with 200 more to come so it’s a challenge.”

Smith is determined to keep the course as best as he can for members and competitions. “As we go into winter, we never take our foot off the gas.”

“During the week we will have a cut across the whole course tee to green and have a couples of days to roll the green to get the speed up.”

“Bulbury Woods holds four or five big competitions such as club championships where we would cut twice in the week.”

This competition has got 30 entries and is one of the last going into to the winter break.

“This is the last big thing on the calendar.”

The first tee time is 10:04.