We'll fix it, mow worries!
THE rolling fairways of the Karana Downs Golf Course are being tamed by a group of green-thumbed neighbours keeping the dilapidated links prim and proper.
The course has been left unattended since a failed bid to turn the 18-hole course into a housing development last year.
While the greens and bunkers have remained largely untouched, seven neighbours have come together to keep some of the fairways in check and free of slithering snakes.
Led by Gerhard de Jager, the residents each cover a patch of the sixth, seventh and eighth fairways, which takes up to three hours a week to maintain on a ride-on mower.
Mr de Jager initiated the first mowing after approaching the course owner after it was closed down last year.
"I spoke to the owner the day after he closed the golf course; he was on the tee right in front of my house and I asked him if I could mow here and he said you are most welcome to," he said.
The keen golfer's initiatives quickly resonated with his neighbours, who saddled up and joined him on the links.
"I've got a ride-on mower and I started to use it along the fairways and then the neighbours started riding also."
He said the risk of deadly wildlife taking up residence in the overgrown fairways was a concern for him and his neighbours.
"I have had a few brown snakes on my patio. If I sit out on my patio I would like to see the golf course."
Mr de Jager supplied his neighbours with ride-on mowers from his business, Anstead Mowers and Chainsaws, to keep the effort going.
The efforts of the mowers don't go un-rewarded, as they often find an abundance of balls in the course's roughest patches.
Brisbane City Councillor for Pullenvale Margaret De Wit commended the neighbours for working together.
"Too often we find people don't talk to their neighbours. They contact us when they want the community to intervene," she said.
