30/12/2025
Hello members and guests,
Well, another year comes to an end. 2025 has thrown up all sorts of challenges, from the all-too-common floods to extended drier conditions.
While January and February were drier than normal, Alfred in March certainly turned the tide, with the following three months delivering over a metre of rainfall. At that stage, I was confident we were going to eclipse the highest rainfall total during my tenure here. However, August, September and now December have been kinder to us, bringing our yearly total to 1707mm.
For comparison, the highest rainfall in my eight years here was in 2022 at 1909mm. Last year we recorded 1422mm, while our lowest was in 2019 with just 684mm.
Outside of the weather, we have made many improvements to the course. The 10th and 18th fairway upgrades have been extremely popular, the 1st green rebuild has been a success, and there have been many other improvements throughout the course.
There are many things that can go wrong or make life difficult when operating a golf course — machinery breakdowns, irrigation failures, agronomic challenges, and, of course, the weather. These are often the things that aren’t seen or heard about, yet the goal remains the same: to ensure the golf course and playing surfaces are ready and playable every single day, 365 days a year.
Keeping you all playing golf while juggling our work is also quite a challenge, this month alone we have had over 11,000 green fee players averaging approx. 400 players a day. Some of our busiest days around this Christmas period we are seeing 550+ players, and while this is a nice problem to have it adds stress to greens and tee boxes not to mention the tracking from carts.
To combat all these challenges, you need a strong team, and I’m very fortunate to have one here at Meadowbrook. A big thank you to all my staff who have put their blood, sweat and tears into the golf course over the last 12 months.
Finally, a huge thank you to everyone for supporting the club and our team throughout the year. We hope you all had a great Christmas and wish you a happy and safe New Year.
See you all out on the course in 2026.
Kind regards,
Luke Helm
Superintendent
