Maleny, Australia Paves the Way with Artificial Greens

The Maleny Lawn Bowls Club in Australia has been the first club in Australia to install artificial greens; and the chairman of the club, Ian Hansen, thinks that from the response its gotten before it’s even been played on, and the low maintenance costs, this is an exception that’s going to turn into a standard.

The Maleny Lawn Bowls Club has already had many visitors stop by to check out the artificial greens and see for themselves how they look and feel. Hansen said that the natural green was replaced in the first place because it was running pretty slow and he chose artificial greens to replace it because they had a “truer surface.” And he said, artificial greens also don’t take nearly as long to dry. Even after a heavy rainfall, folks can still be back playing on the new greens in about 20 minutes. In addition to that though, Hansen says that there are many other benefits to artificial greens.

One of those benefits is that there is almost no maintenance cost. While the Maleny Lawn Bowls Club did go into $165,000 worth of debt installing the new greens, they were also able to eliminate the upkeep maintenance services and they were able to get rid of the old equipment for maintaining their natural greens that were constantly breaking down and needing repair or maintenance themselves. And another benefit and eliminated expense? The lack of chemicals that artificial greens need! Of course these greens don’t need any fertilizer, pesticide, or any other toxic chemicals that normally comes with greens.

Maleny, Australia may be one of the first on the Sunshine Coast to install artificial greens in their lawn bowling club, but they’re pretty sure that they won’t be the last. And from the way people are already talking, they’re right! Mooloolah Valley, Mooloolaba, and Pelican Waters are all lawn bowling clubs that are considering having artificial greens installed in their clubs.