Ballarat’s playing surfaces have certainly matured and improved through the past four growing seasons and it is a credit to the course maintenance crew that the fairways and greens are as good as

they are when you consider the extremes of climate that can be experienced at Ballarat.

On visits to Ballarat last year, I saw light snow at the tail end of winter and 30˚ heat only a month later, yet the Santa Ana couch fairways and G2 bentgrass greens played the same, and really only differed in colour.