Webb rests while Royal Pines mends
BY Bruce Young | ALPG Tour | 2008 ANZ Ladies Masters | Preview | 07 Feb 2008
Royal Pines Golf Course Superintendent, Paul McLean, met with the media today to outline the prognosis for the next few days at the ANZ Ladies Masters after nearly 9 inches (220 mm) of rain had fallen since last Saturday and two inches in the space of an hour on Wednesday.
“While they could possibly have played nine holes this afternoon we could not have carried out the restorative work especially to the bunkering that we needed to work on,” said McLean, who has been in charge at Royal Pines for only four months.
It is a baptism of fire for the Gold Coaster but it appears he is surviving well with both Laura Davies and Karrie Webb indicating the greens in 2008 are in the best shape for many years.
“We will spend most of the day today draining bunkers and then raking them to get them right for tomorrow but we will not be able to get mowers onto the course until after play tomorrow afternoon,” added Mclean. “By Saturday morning we should be all up to date with mowing.”
“The forecast for the next few days is good and the forecasts we have been using have been spot on so we have no reason to expect anything else over the next few days.”
Conditions are expected to improve and fingers are crossed that the event will get 54 holes completed by Sunday afternoon.
The hot pre-tournament favourite for this week’s ANZ Ladies Masters, Karrie Webb, is taking advantage of the enforced day off at the tournament to hit the Gold Coast beaches.
“It’s a little disappointing that we can’t play today but on the other hand we don’t want to be playing a golf course that’s not quite ready,” said Webb as she headed to the practice range for a couple of hours practice before heading to the beach with her family.
With the event now reduced to 54 holes Webb believes a different approach to the event will be needed. Last year Webb was slow out of the blocks on day one of the event and took until early in the final round before hitting the lead.
“This year we can’t afford a poor round at any stage as in a normal 72 hole event it tends to sort a few more people out and there is more time to recover,” she added referring to the now sprint nature of this week’s tournament.
