Omni Court update

We are planning to replace the omni turf on courts 1 thru 4 this year. At the last Club AGM, a resolution approving the spending of not more than RM300K was passed, and the tennis committee was instructed to form an adhoc committee together with members of the General committee to evaluate the various proposals and conduct a fresh tender exercise to select the vendor and materials.

Typically the courts are expected to last about 7 years and courts 1 thru 4 were indeed last replaced back in 2001. The materials used at that time were 19 mm Wimbledon Unreal Grass (a brand name of product manufactured by Grassman in Australia.

We think the Omni court vendor and the materials have remained the same for at least 14 years and possibly longer. There have been some business changes in the Wimbedon brand and now the vendor is proposing Grassman TOP FLIGHT 19 which seems to be identical and probably is since Wimbledon was OEMed by Grassman.

However the cost has increased from about RM45K per court that we paid back in 2001 to about RM75K (thus the 300K spending request approved at the AGM)

We have also received quotes for a competitor's product which in many respects is very similar and comes from New Zealand. The company is called Tiger Turf. They have a 19mm product called Tournament 1000 which appears to be almost identical to Top Flight 19 and is substantially cheaper.

The other technical item of interest is that since the courts were last replaced, both of these manufacturers have introduced what is known as "integrated" lines. That is to say that previously , the lines were "cut-in" using long strips of 2" wide materials to form the baselines and tram lines. They literally sliced open the carpet with a knife and inserted long strips of yellow material to form the lines. Now the baselines and tramlines are woven into the appropriate sections of carpet so as to reduce tearing (which is where we are currently having the most problems with our courts). The service lines are still cut-in but we have few problems there.

We'll be evaluating all this and making some proposals soon. Our intention is to replace the carpets with materials that provide the same feel and comfort that our members have grown to appreciate over the years and we hope we can do so at a reasonable cost.