Happy New Year to all our readers – hope everyone had a great Christmas and managed to get in a bit of golf on the side. We are still in holiday mode with respect to our club program with nothing major planned for the next couple of weeks. Shootout qualifying rounds are scheduled to begin from Saturday 19th January and the following Saturday is the start of Interclub. For those of you competing in the Miners Arms, you should be thinking about when to play your January round. For those of you whose handicaps are on the way down following some good rounds, they will be revised wef next Thursday so you may want to try and get your round in this weekend. And keep recording those really good hole scores on the Summer Eclectic sheets on the downstairs notice boards.
Back 9 Closed Next Week for Working Bees
As previously advised, Transpower’s painting contractor will be repainting the national grid transmission tower that is situated close to our 17th green next week. We agreed this date with them some time ago as likely to be the least disruptive time for our members. As part of the painting preparation the tower is cleaned by high pressure sand blasting. Because this would require us to close off the 17th green and 18th tee block the Committee has instead decided in conjunction with Matt to close off the whole back 9 next week for members to help our green keepers catch up on various tasks around that part of the course.
We will begin on Monday with our first priority being to cut out toad rush from the various greens where it has taken hold (on the front 9 as well as the back 9). This is a big job for our 2 green keepers to fit in amongst all the mowing they have been having to do these past few weeks, but hopefully a team of volunteers will be able to make good progress. It will involve getting down on our hands and knees or bottoms, so if you have any, bring knee pads and/or gardening mats. If you have a narrow bladed knife, eg an old dining knife, bring that for your digging tool. Also if you have any, please also bring a couple of buckets – one for sand for repairing the holes that we will be digging and the other for the toad rush being dug out. We will aim to start at 9.30am so that we can avoid the heat of the day, whilst giving Matt and Lukas time to do their usual early morning tasks. Don’t forget to bring a sun hat, sun glasses, and to apply liberal doses of sunscreen.
If anyone is an experienced weed eater user, then Matt may get you to work on weed eating the streams and/or alongside various paths. The green keepers have 3 petrol driven (2 stroke) weed eaters available for use – if you are up for that and know how to operate the weed eater, then please wear long trousers and sturdy shoes, and bring ear muffs as well as protective sun glasses.
Men’s Wednesday Club and Women’s Tuesday Club
The men’s Wednesday club begins again next Wednesday. With the back 9 closed, they intend to play the front 9 twice, once from the white tees and once from the reds. The mid week women’s clubs will also be back in action next week.
Team Yip Twilight Golf
This also kicks off again next week, on Thursday – only $20 for 9 holes of fun golf plus a bbq meal to follow. All members, friends and visitors are welcome. Tee off between 5 and 5.30pm.
Land Sale
The section of land that we propose to subdivide is currently open for tender that closes on 30th January. If you know of anyone who may be interested, please let them know.
New Rules
Don’t forget that new rules are now in play, having taken effect from 1 January. If taking a drop, you should now be doing it from knee high. And you are now allowed only 3 minutes maximum to look for a lost ball. Loose impediments can now be moved from hazards and bunkers, and you are allowed to ground your club in hazards, but only accidentally in bunkers. If your ball is in a bunker and you deem it unplayable, you can now drop it outside the bunker for a 2 stroke penalty. On the green, there is no penalty for accidentally touching your ball, but it must be replaced to where it was. Also, you are now allowed to putt with the flag in – this will save someone always having to hold the pin for someone attempting a long putt, and should therefore save time, especially when no one’s ball is close to the pin.
Also designed to save time is the ability now for clubs to adopt a local rule allowing a drop to be taken for a lost ball or for a ball hit out of bounds, instead of having to go back and replay from where the errant shot was taken. For example, if your drive off the 11th tee went out of bounds and you hadn’t played a provisional, upon determining your ball must have gone out of bounds after not being able to find it, you can now take a drop on the fairway for a 2 stroke penalty. This means that your next shot would be your 4th, same as if you had played a provisional or gone back and replayed your drive and it had ended up around where you took the drop. The following excerpt from the UK Golf Monthly
should help explain this situation and how/where to take the drop:
Graphics: R&A
New Golf Rules Explained: Local Rules
One interesting result of the 2019 Rules revisions is a permissible new Local Rules that will provide an alternative to stroke and distance for a ball that is either lost or out of bounds.
Here’s how it would work where adopted…
If your ball is lost or out of bounds, find an equidistant point on the edge of the fairway (your ‘fairway reference point’) to where you believe your ball is either lost or went out of bounds (your ‘ball reference point’) and then drop somewhere between the two, with a further two club lengths’ leeway (either side for a lost ball) under penalty of two strokes.
Graphics: R&A
If it were your tee shot that went out of bounds, you would be playing four from there, just as you would if you had hit your provisional ball to the same spot.
However, there are a number of important points to bear in mind:
1) Many people who currently play such a ‘Rule’ informally will typically only regard it as a one-shot penalty, but the penalty under this new Local Rule will be two strokes.
2) Even when this Local Rule is in force, you may still choose to hit a provisional. But if you do, the above alternative won’t be available.
3) It is only a Local Rule option, so check if your home club will be adopting it. Even if they do, it won’t always be an option when playing away matches of competitions.
Please note that the Committee has not formally adopted this local rule option and is not scheduled to meet until 28 January. However, if we can get a quorum before then we will look to adopt it and advise members accordingly. Also, when Wellington Golf staff are back at work next week we will seek clarification as to whether they wish this local rule to be allowed for interclub matches.
In addition to the rule changes we now have more options as to areas that can be defined as hazards. Club Captain Carl Beentjes and Vice President Adrian Porter walked the course with Matt just before Christmas to determine what parts of our course we could now beneficially mark as hazard. The green keepers will mark these up in due course, however, it is not their top priority at the moment.
Finally, please note that the local rules printed on the back of our scorecards are still valid but some of the Rule reference numbers quoted are no longer correct. We wont be updating these until our current supply runs out which will not be for several months.
Sponsor Speak
Our 17th hole is sponsored by Chartered Accountant Terry Bastion. His practice is handily located in the Karori Bridge Club building, 272 Karori Road, Ph 476-5775. We are now into the final quarter of most people’s tax years, so could be time to give Terry a call.
Happy golfing, play safely,
Your KGC Committee