THE Wentworth Golf Club is looking the best it has in years after the dedication of local volunteers helped revive the picturesque course.
The club had seen an increase in members and competition days as the greens and fairways return to their former state.
“To have 18 holes up and running and getting better by the day with a lot of work by volunteers is really good,” club treasurer Howard Hankinson said. “We’re getting numbers down there and it’s great.”
When the Wentworth Services Club had to relinquish management of the Wentworth Sporting Complex (incorporating the tennis, golf and bowls club), the golf course’s loss of staff meant the greens and fairways deteriorated very quickly. However, the whole place has now been turned around.
“The tennis club, golf club and bowls club are all together in that complex, the bowls club just has had a second synthetic rink put in, the tennis club has, I think, six brand new courts in, things are going well at the complex full stop,” Hankinson said.
To service the golf club part of the complex a group of golfers formed the Wentworth Sporting Complex Golf Club in 2012 and began the work to rebuild and maintain the fairways and greens.
From 2012 to 2015 the course had only nine holes open and with a number of these holes having temporary greens, as the club and volunteers worked to ensure sufficient allocation of water and a reliable irrigation system for the course.
In 2016 the club reopened all 18 holes and greens and since then, with replanting and improved irrigation, the greens and fairways are the best they have been for 10 years.
A 2018 grant allowed for the purchase of new fairway, greens and rough cutter mowers allowing volunteers to have reliable machinery that has enhanced the improvement of the fairways and greens.
“There’s not the water hazards there were many years ago, there’s only one instead of the many they had,” Hankinson said. “It’s a bit easier in regards to the water hazards, the fairways are in good condition and the greens are the best they’ve been in 15 years.”
Many volunteers have and continue to help around the club including two 30-plus- year members of the Wentworth Golf Club, Fred Campbell and Bill Murray, now life members, who have and continue to work most days to ensure watering is operational and maintenance is kept on top of.
Wentworth Golf Club has low green fees and visitors can play either nine holes for $10 or 18 holes for $15.
A yearly membership is available for $120 per year for males and $60 for females, juniors or country members (residing more than 100km from the club).
“It’s amazing so many people in Sunraysia didn’t think it was open, or thought it was only nine holes, but it’s 18 holes and functioning well,” Hankinson said.
Eighteen-hole competitions are now held Thursday and Sunday and a nine-hole daylight saving competition is on Tuesday evening from 5pm.
