Wow, another week of fantastic weather, and no rain forecast for another week yet. Great for golf but not for our fairways. Could be worse though - normally at this time of the year we also have to cope with equinox winds blowing everything dry - not sure where they have gone but who cares. Not surprisingly given the weather, we have been getting good turn outs this week, and hopefully these will continue into the weekend, and especially for tomorrow’s Murray Halberg tournament.
This Weekend’s Events
Tomorrow is the annual Murray Halberg tournament put on by the Eagles society to raise funds for the Halberg Disability Sport Foundation. This event is open to all members, including mid week members, and is always a fun day. It is not too late to enter – ring or email the club and we will forward your details to the Eagles for adding you into the draw. Tee off will be by a shotgun start at 10.30 so please aim to have registered by 10am. Being a shotgun start and with a large field expected, the course will be closed all morning.
On Sunday our men’s club champions – Jay Maaka, Mike Wood and Kevin Norquay - will be representing Karori in the regional Champion of Champions at Masterton where all the club champions from the various clubs throughout the region will be squaring off over 36 holes to determine the overall Champion of Champions. Best of luck guys!
And dont forget, Prodrive's car park clear out sale is on this weekend only.
Other Upcoming Events
Next Saturday, 2nd December, is our AGM, beginning at 9.30am after which will be a disc draw golf tournament – see below for an update on the AGM
Sunday 3rd December both our men and women Shoot Out finalists will be shooting it out for the title of Top Gun
Wednesday 6th December Wednesday Club prize giving end of year function – please note that the disc draw that day will be at 10.25am
Saturday 9th December Women’s Club closing day and men’s Top Dog playoff
Saturday 16th December Club Closing Day, beginning with breakfast put on by the committee followed by a fun Irish foursomes tournament.
AGM Saturday 2nd December
Our Annual General Meeting on Saturday 2nd December beginning at 9.30am in the club house lounge is your chance to review the 2017 financial year and to input into the future of the club. We are pleased to confirm that all of the existing committee members will be standing again, plus we have nominations for 4 new members. The Annual Report should be available for emailing out early next week along with Notices of Motion and the Financial Statements which are currently being reviewed.
Harcourts Twilight Thursday 23rd November
A perfect night for Twilight golf this week - even the odd complaint of being too hot! We had 24 golfers competing for the prize money with some very high scoring reflecting the calm conditions, with 9 scores over 20 points.
Joint winners on the night were Brigitte Boenisch-Brednich (again) on 26 points ($20), Ingrid Rampton, and Richard Reith on 26 points ($20). Second went to Gloria Grayson on 25 points ($15). Third was Terry Bastion on 23 points ($10). Also in the money was Marg McCarthy on 22 points ($5). Tim Brosnahan and Doug Calhoun were on 21 points collected a golf ball, as did Geoff Lee for 2 on the 4th hole. The consolation prize went to Phil Robinson. Wayne and Tim
Wednesday Club
Wednesday Club Results for 22nd November:
A beautiful day greeted the 34 who gathered to contest the Wednesday club Stableford competition, plus seven 9 holers.
With the favourable conditions good scores eventuated but before announcing the prize winners Chris Pearce outlined the Wednesday Club Prize Giving scheduled for Wednesday 6 December with an earlier start at 10.25am.
He also extender a warm welcome to 5 visitors from Cumbria, UK (Of Beatrix Potter and Peter Rabbit fame) Peter Rooke, Nick Pavey- Smith, Peter & Tina Wylie and Steve Hornsby secretary of the Cockermouth Golf Club, Western Lake District, Cumbria, UK . David Sercombe presented Steve with a copy of “Four to the Fore” and as it appears their course is even more hilly than ours perhaps we may see more of their members here for some quiet relief! Also nice to see David Martin back with us again after some considerable absence.
The outright winner on the day proved to be Saint Kennach with 44 points, runner up by count back was Rob Ashby (Mornington) from Satish Chandra. All those with 37 points or better were prize winners. Noted, visitor Peter Rooke scored 36 points which was a great result for a first time on our course. The prize for sheer persistence was taken up by Doug Calhoun with John McDougall claiming Nearest the Pin on the 4th but by missing the putt duly paid the requisite $1 fine in the clubhouse.
Visitor Rob Ashby scored the only “Two” of the day on the 6th. The weekly Raffle was won by Graham Presland with No 30, Second No 7 held by Alex Lim and Third No 15 held by visitor Steve Hornsby.
The Wednesday Club would also like to thank Ian Bates and Alex Lim for their generous golf ball donations.
An altogether great day in the sun and we look forward to more next week.
Lite Club
We were visited on Wednesday by members of the Lite Club – a charity set up by Michael Campbell and others and sponsored by various local councils and gaming trusts to help sports clubs become more energy efficient. They replaced all our non efficient light bulbs with LEDs – 30 of them - and put a wrap around the large hot water cylinder that supplies the bathrooms. The retail value of these items, which they provided free of charge, was assessed at $547, for which we are very appreciative. Hopefully we will also start to see some savings in our electricity bill. We also discussed with them how we could recycle our 330ml bottles. We recycle quart beer bottles via swap-a-crate with our supplier but the smaller 330ml bottles are more of a problem. The only solution we can think of is to collect them into smallish leak proof containers of some sort for members to take home for putting into their recycle bins – we will explore the practicalities of this but if you are willing to take some home, please let us know.
Committee Update
The Committee held its monthly meeting last week and can report as follows:
· Our 2017 financials have been completed and have been forwarded to our reviewer.
· Reports are being written for inclusion in the Annual Report.
· The club’s ute, having traveled over 350,000 kms, has finally died and despite several attempts to resurrect it, we have concluded it is no longer worth throwing more good money after bad and we will have to bite the bullet and replace it.
· Other major items of green keeper equipment are also coming up for renewal and we will struggle to pay for all of them out of trading surpluses. We will therefore be putting a motion at the AGM for approval to prepare a section of our spare land for subdivision and eventual sale to help us fund our next wave of equipment investment.
· We are in the process of renewing our insurances, and have submitted a claim for the recent burglary.
· We are continuing with selective local advertising and where possible trying to dove tail it with stories about the club, such as our impending 50th anniversary, or the City of Wellington (NB see this week’s Independent Herald for the write up about the CoW).
· We have agreed to revise our local rule regarding the use of measuring devices – see below:
Measuring Devices
The way our current local rule is written (on the white board below the balcony) is consistent with how local rules regarding measuring devices were initially introduced, effectively banning the use of any device which could measure anything other than distance. This therefore banned the use of people using mobile phones and slope measuring rangefinders etc. In 2016 the R & A and USGA recommended that this initial wording be amended to allow the use of mobile phones etc to measure distance as long as functions that measured things other than distance weren't used. The committee has therefore agreed to update our local rule to the following suggested R & A wording:
"For all play at this course a player may obtain distance information by use of a distance-measuring device. If during a stipulated round, a player used a distance-measuring device to gauge or measure other conditions that might affect his play (e.g. elevation changes, wind speed, etc.) the player is in breach of Rule 14-3".
Christmas Trees
Once again the club’s elves will be harvesting Christmas trees from the course for sale to club members. If you would like to pre-order, ring/email the club, otherwise we will announce in a future Friday Flash when they are available.
Sponsor Speak
The thirteenth hole is the last of our Par 3s and another one of those holes which should be straight forward but on which it is very easy to get into trouble. The prevailing wind is normally in your face, so will accentuate any side spin you impart onto the ball off the tee. All sorts of things – good and bad – can happen if you hit the slope on the left. The hole is sponsored by Lockwood and Associates, Registered Public Valuers and Independent Property Experts who updated the values of our buildings earlier this year. If you need an updated house valuation for insurance purposes, Nigel Lockwood is the one to call. Check out his profile on their website:
Nigel Lockwood
There is a drinking water tap between the 13th green and the green keepers shed, just in time for a welcome refreshment ahead of some of our harder holes. The green keepers shed was build 20 years ago by members of the club under supervision from Phil Robinson - a phenomenal effort!
Happy golfing, play safely,
Your KGC Committee