Friday Flash 23 October 2015

We’ve got more news than CNN this week. You can skip the bits that don’t interest you but there’s lots of great things happening at our dear course.

New Flags:

We have ordered new flag sticks and flags. These will be ready and out on the course in time for the City of Wellington.

NZIS Tournament

Only one week until this popular Ambrose kicks off. $24 a head, discounted rate for our members so book your spot with us today.

Champions of Champions is coming to Karori

Karori will be hosting the annual 36-hole Champions of Champions for the Wellington region on Sunday 22 November. This brings together the winners of each of the 27 clubs Senior, Intermediate and Junior A club champs. Trevor Brown, Jonathan Walton and Theo Kuper will be representing us this year.

We need volunteers for this event, particularly ball-spotters and starters and general helpers. Can you assist us? Contact Erich Bucher at erich@arjay.co.nz.

Registrations for Prodrive City of Wellington – don’t miss out

Please support the club by registering today rather than at the last minute. Here are three ways to register for the Prodrive City of Wellington at Karori on November 14.

1. Go to Wellington Golf’s site and complete the registration. It’s the best way and it’s really easy. wgi.co.nz/events

Once you have registered, you can pay straight into our bank account.

Pay by Direct Credit to bank account 06 0501 0432338 00, using reference COW and your NZ Golf ID.

2. Or: Email the club and we can enter your details. Then pay into our account, as above.

3. Or: Register and pay at the club.

Harcourts Twilight Golf

The weather was kind for Twilight Golf on Thursday night with a calm evening for 9 holes of golf, followed by a social gathering on the balcony. First prize on the night was collected by Matthew Everett on 26 points, followed by Mark Dinsdale on 23 and Gail Kirkland and Sue Murray on 22 points ( Gail currently leads after the first two rounds). The competition runs until 31 March 2016, with the 10 best scores over the period counting in the final score so still plenty of time for you to join in and compete for the big end of year prizes. It was good to see Bob Davidson from Harcourt’s our Twilight sponsor out again this week. We also have a $2 mulligan for those that have an errant shot that they want to replay. Many thanks to Sara and Gulnara this week for the fine bbq that followed.

AGM is coming and we need a more active committee

A few of our committee members are moving on after great contributions to the club. To keep the club moving forward we need active, practical committee members. Please think seriously about joining us. If you would like your name to go forward contact Mark Peck at peck.m@xtra.co.nz.

Karori Cricket gets hit for six

One of our most popular posts on Facebook was our gentle banter with Karori Cricket Club. The post had 173 hits, approaching the popularity of our shots of the club champions in action last week.

Course update

Here’s a report from Scott Dunkerly our Greenkeeper?

Coring:

The coring went well, the machine behaved itself and everything ran smoothly. Keith Gaskin and his crew of workers were a great help in picking up the cores. All this allowed us to get the sand and seed down before the end of the week. We have put down a good sterliser this morning and they should start recovering from now on.

Surrounds:

Time permitting we will be looking to target a few areas of the surrounds to core over the next few weeks. We will have soaker hoses running on certain areas throughout most of the week.

Rough:

Most of the rough has now been sprayed, it goes a yellow colour after we do this and the growth slows down. This is normal. Now we will look to specifically target the daisies around the greens and throughout the rough that make the course look unsightly.

Volunteers:

We need volunteers to support the Golden Mop which is a great day to help tidy up the course before the City of Wellington.

One thing I would like is for the watercress to be pulled out of the waterways.

Sand Bucket Holder:

This will be complete and ready and erected before the C.o.W also. We plan to put at the bottom of the path leading to first tee on the 18th side of the path. This will allow golfers heading out onto the course the opportunity to grab one and remind golfers finishing their rounds to leave the buckets there when they are done.

Greensmower:

We had this out on display last weekend. Do we still want to get photos of Andy Foster with it?

Shaun from Prodrive has a tip for you

Practice from bad lies. When on the practice fairway or having a few practice holes place your ball in some difficult positions and bad lies, if you have time hit a few balls from each. This will help develop a feel for how the club/ball will react. If you get into trouble on the course during a round you can fall back on this experience and confidently predict how the ball will come out.

Need A Nerd is a wonderful supporter of Karori Golf.

KGC Interclub Captain Carl Beentjes is also one of our sponsors. Make sure you salute the Need A Nerd sign when you next pass the tees on the 12th.

More importantly, if you own a computer or any piece of technology you will likely have experienced some difficulties and frustrations in getting it to work as you want.

If this is you, whether it be at home or at the office, chances are you Need a Nerd. For quick a response, and great service without all that IT jargon, give them a call at 0800 633 326 or call Carl direct at 04 212 6413.

Wednesday Club Report for 21 October

14 Visitors from the Ohariu Valley Golf Club, together with Wynn Ingram from Waikanae and former member, Andrew McNaught joined us for the "Par" competition, making 47 players in all.

The winner, with a score of 5 up, was visitor Phil Whitelaw from Ohariu Valley, followed very closely by our Athol Swann on 4 up.

Despite getting a two on the 6th hole, Dave Ainsworth also earned the prize for perseverance. Other twos were scored by Wynn Ingram and Victor Diem but not by the winner of the Prodrive "closest to the flag" on the 4th hole, Tim Brosnahan, who paid the usual penalty. Fourteen players with scores better than -1 won a golf ball.

Raffle winners were visitor Mike O'Shaughnessy, Tim Allison and John McDougall.

Although there were only two of the 9 hole persuasion we were joined by perhaps the newest member of the club having only joined the previous day, Jose who hails from Portugal was finishing off his 18 holes having begun earlier in the am ... my apologies to Jose as I cannot remember his surname but we really enjoyed his company and look forward to seeing him at the Club again soon.

Many thanks to Chris Pearce for compiling the Wednesday Club results.

Facebook support is building

We appreciate many of our members are not facebook users but the page is steadily building support and is a valuable tool to share images, promote activities and slowly extent our contacts into a wider community. Please visit it and help create a better online community for the club.

We are forming a posse

Unfortunately, there appears to be a fair number of people visiting our course for a free game of golf. To arrest this free-loading we are going to do a bit of course-marshalling. There will be a sheriff and deputy go out a few times a week, not on horseback but on the cart. We will very nicely ask people if they are members and ensure they have paid.

Two requests to members: display your membership tags on your trundler and please don’t take offence if you are asked if you’re a member: it’s an opportunity to say hi and get to know each other.

Also, please ensure any visitors you bring (and please bring lots!) have paid before they hit a ball.