Fulford Golf Club will witness an historic final cut next week when the course loses a landmark feature.

The avenue of poplar trees which runs alongside the left-hand boundary of the first hole are to be removed. The trees, which are an 'unnatural' feature of the course's ecology, feature on the Fulford crest and are known throughout the golf world.

But safety grounds determine that the boundary-edge boulevard, which has provided a towering green screen for nigh on 60 years since they were first planted in 1935, has to be chopped down. Ironically, the poplars will be blitzed ahead of the Fulford celebrating its centenary next year.

The demise of the poplars will start on Monday and will last about a week said Fulford's head greenkeeper Mark Mennell, who, admitted he will be one of the few not to be too sorry to see the trees go.

He explained that the poplars, which, in a bid to prolong their stay at Fulford, were shortened in height - or pollarded - just over a decade ago, normally have a lifespan of 50 years.

"They have exceeded that by close on 20 years and now they are finished," said Mennell.

"It's a question of safety. There's a public right of way alongside them and the wood is so soft now that it is a danger."

While Mennell noted it was a 'sad' day for some members to see such a familiar attraction disappear, he added that the poplar was not a species naturally associated with the environment at Fulford.

"We've had several ecology reports done and if the ground the course is on were to grow wild then the trees you would have would be silver birch and oak, with gorse - not poplars," said the greenkeeper.

"And they do cause us a lot of problems with drainage in the amount of leaves they shed and also in the way they greedily seek out water in the drainage system."

The poplar population will not be lost entirely, however. There are other poplars elsewhere on the Heslington-based course, while the boundary edge to the first hole will now be marked by a hornbeam hedge which was planted when the poplars were first pollarded.

Updated: 10:12 Saturday, November 19, 2005