Friday 13th, unlucky for some, especially those unable to get out to our course this weekend.
This Weekend’s Events
Tomorrow our women’s Saturday Club are playing LGU8.
On Sunday it is the quarter finals of the men’s match play championships. There were some great tussles last weekend, and more thrilling match ups are expected this Sunday as players battle to get a step closer to having their name embossed on our honours board as a 2019 Club Champion. Best of luck to all contestants.
Deane Milne sent us these photos taken from last Sunday’s round of matches:
Women’s Tuesday Club
This Tuesday the 9 hole midweek ladies played their qualifying round for the Club Championships. It was a beautiful day and conditions were perfect for some very good golf. Conditions couldn't have been more different the previous day when several ladies played in a Vets game at Miramar. Battling strong cold southerlies and spats of rain, Kath Robinson, Trish Titcombe and Lindsey Pickering all managed to win golf balls.
Men’s Wednesday Club
It started as a bitterly cold day with strong northerly winds. It was one of the few days when Wellington had good weather but Makara did not. However, we still had a good crowd of 28 members including 2 infrequent guests: Anthony Kennedy and Doug Shearer. Today was the first day Doug joined the competition after an absence of more than a year.
We had a birthday celebration for our octogenarian, Chris Pearce, who turned 80 a few days ago. Thanks to him, we had a free drink in the clubhouse. The competition format was par and it was the first game of 2 for the Bogey Cup. Most didn't have a good game because only 5 members managed to play at their handicap or lower. The winner was Martin Leung with a score of +4, followed by Victor of +2, and Jerry Barber with +1. Balls were distributed to -2.
Victor and Mike Cox competed strongly for the NTP but Mike won by a few inches. However, Mike did not make the putt so donated money to the pig. We had only one Two: John McDougall, and the bunny went to Doug. He had a good excuse for suffering from foot pain for a long time.
For raffles, the winner was Martin, our champion for the first leg of the Bogey Cup, the second went to Don McCrone and the third one went to Gunter Karau.
Regards, Victor
Men’s Vets Results
Last Monday we were pleased to host the Wellington District Men’s Veterans which saw a field of over 50 players battling it out in 2 divisions for stableford points, followed by lunch back in the clubhouse. A big thankyou to Ian Bates, our Men’s Vets convener, and his band of helpers, for organising the event, our greenkeepers for their early start getting the course looking so good in time for the 10.30am tee off, and for Debbie and Nikki (Anna’s mother) for preparing the after match catering. It was pleasing to see Karori members amongst the prize winners, with Alex Lim winning Div 1 with 39 point, closely followed by Mike Cox on 38.
Downstairs Printer
The printer in the downstairs foyer has developed a problem with the rollers that enable scorecards to exit from the back of the printer, resulting in paper jams. As a result we have had to turn the printer around and have the cards printed out from the more normal exit. This though means the printed card does not fully reach the opening in the wall, meaning you will now have to fit your hand through the opening to retrieve it. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
Matthew Beattie, RIP
It is with much sadness that we advise members of the passing of club member, Matt Beattie, at Mary Potter Hospice on Monday 9 September. Matt joined the Karori Golf Club in 2000 and was a regular weekend golfer. His company “Instep Limited” sponsored the 6th hole and he was a major sponsor of the annual Karori Events Centre fundraising golf tournament, of which he was a trustee.
Matt’s funeral will be at the Wellington Cathedral of St Paul at 11.00AM on Monday 16 September.
Repairing Pitch Marks and Replacing Divots
In support of our recent drive to remind members to repair their pitch marks, on both the greens and their surrounds, plus to replace their divots or fill them with sand, Phil Hartley sent us this photo earlier this week taken from the first tee at the Helensville Golf Club in Auckland. Although we don’t usually reach as many as 130 rounds per day on our course, the maths is just as convincing for only half that number.
Shootout Update
There are only a few weeks left for male members to complete their 15 qualifying rounds for the end of year Shootout that is scheduled for Sunday 1st December. A summary of rounds completed to date by the would be gun slingers is attached, to help them work out how many more rounds they need to qualify. Note though that they have been compiled from 2 downloads from Dot Golf, being rounds completed up to the end of May, and rounds completed since then, and that the 2 downloads haven’t been merged into ascending order. As a result, entrants are not yet ranked in order of best overall net score.
Competition Results
Although we usually summarise the results of our various competitions in the weekly Friday Flash, don’t forget that you can look up the results of events that you play in on our website. After logging in simply click on Competition Results, which is one of the options under the Members icon, and it will bring up your recent events, plus provides a facility to search for less recent competitions.
Penalty Areas
Our green keepers have been making good progress painting the new penalty area marker posts that we recently purchased and they will soon be starting to put them into place around the course.
Under the new rules that came into effect this year clubs now have more leeway as to what they can class as Penalty Areas (which up until this year used to be called Hazards). In particular, a penalty area doesn’t have to be only a water hazard. In addition, clubs are encouraged to mark their penalty areas as Red rather than Yellow in order to give players more options as to how to take their drop, in the interests of simplifying and speeding up the game.
If a player hits their ball into a Yellow Penalty Area their options are 2 fold:
· Go back as far as you like on a line from the hole to the entry point where your ball last crossed the penalty area and drop the ball within one club length of a point that you choose on this extended line
· Return to where you played your shot that went into the penalty area and drop within one club length of that point.
In both cases you incur 1 penalty stroke.
If you hit your ball into a Red Penalty Area, you have a third option in addition to the above, being to take a drop within 2 club lengths of your entry point to the penalty area (ie the point where your ball last crossed the edge of the penalty area) so long as it is not nearer the hole than your point of entry. Again, you incur a one stroke penalty.
Traditionally Red penalty areas have been lateral water hazards where it is not possible to follow an extension of the line from the hole and the point of entry into the hazard. Our intention is to create a number of new Red penalty areas – eg along the RHS of the 3rd fairway, enabling players to take a drop rather hitting out of the area or going back to where the original shot was played – and to convert most of our existing Yellow penalty areas to Red ones. However, please continue playing Yellow penalty areas as Yellow areas until their marker posts have been replaced by red ones.
One interesting consequence of converting our streams from Yellow to Red penalty areas is that in some spots it may be possible to take a drop on the green side of a stream – eg on our 3rd hole, where one section of the stream runs diagonally, if your drive clears the stream but hooks left and rolls into the stream, your last point at which you crossed the edge of the Penalty Area will be on the green side of the stream, and if it has entered on the diagonal section of the stream, then it may be possible to drop within 2 club lengths of the point of entry on the green side of the stream without the drop being nearer the hole.
One Yellow penalty area that is likely to remain as Yellow is the penalty area in front of the 6th green. This is because it is possible for a tee shot to land on the edge of the green but spin back into the penalty area, or for a chip shot from behind the green to end up past the green and down the bank into the penalty area. The last point of crossing the edge of the penalty area in these cases is green side of the penalty area where there will not always be safe dropping areas that are not closer to the hole.
Happy golfing, play safely,
Your KGC Committee