Golf Industry Central Spring 2014 | Page 30

Course Updates RACV ROYAL PINES ON TARGET FOR AUSTRALIAN PGA By Bruce Young Whether it has been the collective ‘touching of wood’ by those involved or perhaps even divine intervention, the redesign of the initial nine holes of the RACV Royal Pines tournament layout on the Gold Coast is on schedule, almost to the minute. The project required everything to go right if it was to be completed within the very narrow time frame available between the finish of the Volvik RACV Masters in February and the Australian PGA Championship in December and in most cases it has. The South East Queensland region received very little rain in the first half of 2014 and while it has been a cause of real concern for the farming community, conditions could not have been better to complete the bulk earthworks, soil treatment, drainage, irrigation, shaping and grassing phases of the Royal Pines revamp. Those works essentially involved the complete re-design and re-shapin