Plastic pitch for all season bowls

By Jarrod Potter
KOOWEERUP Bowls Club will have a green top all year round, without the associated back-breaking labour, after its new synthetic green was officially opened on Sunday.
The $147,000 green, which has eight rinks and a capacity of 64 players at a time, was made possible through funding from the former Brumby State Government, the Cardinia Shire Council and club fundraising?
Freda Alexander, member since 1976 and four-time lady champion, and Brian McNulty, member since 1974, put down the first bowls on the new green.
Kooweerup Bowls Club secretary Rex Alexander said while the old grass green was excellent to play on in previous years, the cost and time to keep it in peak condition were too much for the club to burden.
The last couple of years it (the grass green) had been playing really well,” Alexander said.
“But we felt that because of the age of the guys looking after it, we really had to look elsewhere to save their backs and the costs of a grass green compared to one of these (synthetic green) is about half the cost over the year.
“It was something none of us not really wanted to do, but we had to.”
Ken Smith MLA, Member for Bass, said the green showed no sign of being water-logged despite the weekend’s heavy rain. He said this indicated just how useful the synthetic green would be to the club in years to come.
“We’re now in the position that we’ve got another club which has a synthetic green that is going to be able to be used all-year round,” Smith said.
“When you think about how much rain we’ve had in the last 24-48 hours, the fact that we’re going to be going out there later and bowling absolutely shows us the reason why to have these greens.
“It’s a great thing for the club, and certainly a great thing for Kooweerup, because this is going to encourage a few more people to come and play bowls here.”
Cardinia Shire Councillor Graeme Moore said the availability of a low-maintenance green would be a great help to the club and the greenkeepers who have toiled to maintain the old grass green.
It’s a great thing for the bowling clubs to have these synthetic rinks to play on,” Cr Moore said.
“As we know, the maintenance of the grass type greens to look after is a horrible thing for the club members to try and keep up all-year round, but now this is an all year round type course to use.”
Kooweerup joins Cardinia Waters, Pakenham, Somerville and Hastings as clubs with synthetic greens, with plans for Lang Lang and Garfield to be made synthetic in the future.