Its less than 2 weeks until ANZAC Day when we will be holding our annual stableford tournament preceded by breakfast and flag ceremony to honour those who made the ultimate sacrifice in defence of their country. This event is open to all members and friends, including 9 holers, so if you haven’t already added your name to the entry sheet on the notice board in the downstairs foyer, please do so if you are out at the club this weekend, especially if you are going away for Easter, or ring/email the club. Please don’t put off your entry until the day before, as we need to organise catering in advance.

Safety alerts

One of our Tuesday women's 9 holers slipped on the path coming down from the 9th green to the 18th green, fortunately without suffering an injury. The bare dirt patches have developed a green slimy coating so please take extra care if you are coming down this path.

The same goes for all our slopes which will be getting slippery as a result of the regular rain that we have been getting lately. Similarly our wooden bridges, especially if you are wearing cleated golf shoes. Please stick to the grated middle sections when crossing them, walk dont run, and dont stop on the edges of them to look for balls in the stream.

This Weekend’s Events

Tomorrow our interclub teams are back in action as follows:

· Our Div 2 men’s team are at home to Paraparaumu

· Our Div 5 men’s team is away to Wainui

· Our Div 9 team is away to Te Marua

· Our women’s Mary Alward interclub team is away to Boulcott’s Farm

Best of luck to all our representatives.

For the non interclub members, our women’s Saturday club are playing Par and for men it is the 8^th round of the Autumn Cup. No other events are programmed for this weekend.

Course Closed On Monday

On Monday we will be hosting the Wellington Men’s Veterans which will involve a shot gun start of around 80 players at 10.30am. As a result the course will be closed for other play until 3pm.

Upcoming Events

Unfortunately our green keepers have not been able to re-sand and resow our greens this week, due to illness by both of them, and the need to get the course mowed after having spent last week coring. They are now aiming to do them next week.

As signalled above, our next major all members event will be our annual ANZAC Day tournament on 25^th April that will begin with breakfast at 7.30am followed by a flag ceremony at 8am and a shotgun start at 8.30. This is always one of our most popular tournaments so please get your entries in now. It costs only $10 ($20 for friends and visitors) which includes breakfast and prizes.

Not in the club program but watch out for a special Star Wars competition on the first Saturday next month to be run in conjunction with the Monthly Medal. Dig out your light-sabres and May the Fourth be with you!

Women’s Tuesday Club

Tuesday was a lovely day for golf after the very cold weekend. The 9 hole ladies played the 6th round of their Medley competition which was a Par game.

The winner was Kath Robinson with +2, 2nd was Loreen Brehaut on +1 and 3rd was Ingrid Rampton on all square

Men’s Wednesday Club

After missing two regular games in the last 10 days due to bad weather and greens being cored, a large group of members turned up for the competition this week. We had 35 players including guest Dennis Cox of Boulcott Farm and new member Mark Graham. I hope they didn’t mind playing on greens covered by cored holes and sand.

The scores of most participants were not good due to gale force winds and sandy greens. Out of 35 participants, only 9 had a score less than or equal to their handicaps.

The winner was David Ainsworth with +2 and the runner up, Jerry Barber had the same score. Balls were handed down to even par scores.

Other prize winners were: NTP went to Mark Graham, there was only 1 player who had a Two - David Ainsworth.

The Bunny prize was Gunter Karau and he reckoned that his future sores will not be worse.

Victor

Defunct Electric Trundler Batteries

Trevor Brown is intending to take some old batteries to the dump in the near future and has offered to also take any electric trundler batteries that may have given up the ghost. There are some batteries on the floor of the electric trundler shed that may be past it but rather than assume so, could any member who has such a battery and would like it disposed of properly please put it against the outside wall of the electric trundler shed sometime over the next few days.

Firewood

With temperatures having dropped markedly over recent days members have started to make enquiries about firewood deliveries. We are pleased to confirm that we do currently have good stocks of firewood which Matt hopes to be able to start delivering once the greens have been re-sanded/resown. Members should ring the greenkeepers' shed with their orders, leaving their name, phone number and address if the greenkeepers are not available to take your call, but please do not expect your order to be delivered immediately – with only 2 green keepers, Matt does not have a lot of spare time and will only be delivering on his way home, which means at most only one delivery per day. Please pay in advance – our bank account for online payments is 06-0501-0432338-00. The cost is $120 delivered, or if picking up yourself (only available on week days between 7am and 3pm) $100 per m³.

Linguistics Survey

Club member Doug Calhoun’s daughter, Sasha, a linguistics professor at VUW, has a Masters student who is seeking volunteers to take part in a 30 minute online linguistics survey as part of her Masters research. If you are a native speaker of New Zealand English aged between 50 and 75, or between 18 and 30, and are willing to take part, please see the attachment for details.

Speed of Play

KGC has long promoted ready golf to help players complete their rounds within 4 hours. This can mean playing out of turn (eg playing before the player who is farthest from the hole) when it makes sense and is safe to do so, as in the following examples, courtesy of the March 2017 edition of NZ Golf magazine:

· Shorter hitters playing first from the tee or fairway if longer hitters have to wait

· Hitting a shot before helping someone to look for a lost ball

· Hitting a shot if a person who has just played from a bunker is still farthest from the hole but is delayed due to raking the bunker

· When a player’s ball has gone over the back of a green, any player closer to the hole but chipping from the front of the green should play while the other player is having to walk to their ball and assess their shot

· Hitting a shot when it is safe to do so if a player farther away faces a challenging shot and is taking time to assess their options

· Hitting a tee shot if the person with the honour is delayed in being ready to play

· Putting out if not stepping on another player’s line

· Marking scores immediately upon arrival at the next tee (not on the green you’ve just played) except for the first player to tee off who marks their card immediately after teeing off.

As always though, player safety comes first so don’t play ahead of turn if you are at risk of hitting one of your fellow players.

Entertainment Books

These are now available for purchase from the shop, or for pick up if you have ordered and paid for one on line, just in time for the school holidays. They cost $65 which is usually recouped after taking advantage of only 2 of the hundreds of deals each book contains. Although existing books don’t expire until June, new books can be used from now on. Digital versions can be purchased via this link

Entertainment Book

Happy golfing, play safely,

Your KGC Committee