ENHANCING THE ENVIRONMENT
STANDING in the middle of Roseville Golf Club’s 14th fairway, just three metres from one of the world’s most intriguing birds, is proof positive that a well-maintained golf course and a thriving natural environment are not mutually exclusive. Roseville course superintendent Mark
O’Sullivan had that exact encounter with a native lyrebird, world renowned for its incredible mimicking abilities, earlier this year and says it shows how important the course and surrounding bushland are to each other.
“Both the course and the environment can be enhanced with the right management,” he says. Both O’Sullivan and general manager
Noel Robertson are emphatic about the long-term culture regarding the environment at Roseville.
“Everything we do has as its main driver environmental responsibility,” Robertson says.“Whether that be course works or projects involving the surrounding bushland, that is our No.1 priority.”
Case in point is the 26 megalitre dam the club opened in 2010, which has contributed not only to the droughtproofing of the course but also broader positive environmental outcomes for the surrounding area and nearby Middle Harbour.
“The building of the dam extended into a fairly detailed water management plan of the course and surrounds,” says Robertson.
“We put in a gross pollutant trap, which takes all of the plastics and cans and other assorted debris out of the water before it reaches the course and also acts as a purification plant.
“It means we have clean water to feed into our dam and also means all that rubbish is filtered out and doesn’t go down into Middle Harbour. It’s good for both the course and the surrounding area.”
The building of the dam has played its part in attracting wildlife back to the course but so, too, has the work done as part of the Teeing Off Carbon Collection project.
“We’ve got some wallabies that come through the course now as well as a healthy water dragon population and several bird species we hadn’t seen for many years,” says O’Sullivan.
“The lyrebirds are among those, as are a second bowerbird family, which has taken up residence, but we’ve also got echidnas, red-bellied black snakes and I saw a threemetre diamond python down in the area where we have been doing this project.”
At just 12 kilometres from the Sydney CBD, Roseville is an excellent example of what can be achieved with the right attitude and some lateral thinking.
As Robertson says, new members are often taken aback by the abundance of native wildlife at the course.
“Those who’ve been here a while sort of get used to it I suppose, but new members are usually quite astonished at what we have here so close to the city,” he says.