This current spell of beautiful autumn weather looks like continuing into the weekend when hopefully you will get a chance to sample the splendour of our course. And although a bit of wind is forecast for tomorrow, it shouldn’t impact blast off times for the skywalkers amongst us competing to see who can get closest to infinity in our Star Wars intergalactic extravaganza. May the force be with all entrants.

This Weekend’s Events

Tomorrow our women’s Mary Alward interclub team are in action away to Kapiti and for those not in that team, the women’s Saturday club are playing Par. For men it is Monthly Medal which tomorrow will be played off the white tees, irrespective of handicap, and on Sunday off the blue tees, again irrespective of handicap. The Medals are played on a best net basis with the winners on each day being eligible to compete for the Top Dog trophy at the end of the year. Entry is free - choose your own tee off time.

In conjunction with the Monthly Medal on Saturday we will also be running a special Stars Wars competition, based on compounding stablefords, in recognition of it being May the Fourth. The winner will be the player with the highest multiple of stablefords – ie instead of adding all the stableford points scored over the round, we will multiply them together. Thus, if you scored 2 stablefords on every hole, your score would be 2¹⁸ = 262,144. Not only that, but to help you get out of the galaxy our local Jedi master will be blanketing a force field power belt over the Death Star gravitational pull of our Amen Corner – ie holes 10,11 and 12. For each of these holes your score will be your stableford score to the power of itself – eg if you score 2 stablefords on one of these holes, your score for that hole will be 2² = 4. Or better still, if you score 3 points, your score for that hole would be 3³ = 27. There is a catch though – if you score 0 stableford points on a hole, then all your stablefords up to and including that hole multiplied together = zero, meaning you lose all your accumulated points and you will have to restart your points accumulation from the next hole. This means that a 0 stableford score late in the round is potentially much more damaging than one early in the round.

However, for a bit more excitement, entrants have the option of purchasing for $5 an inter planetary radiation shield which will have the effect of converting your 0 stableford scores to 1s, so that you don’t lose your accumulated points by failing to score on a hole. That way your compounded score could really get astronomical, especially if you score well on Amen Corner.

We will have 2 prizes up for grabs – one for the highest compounded stablefords without a radiation shield, and one for the most with the benefit of the shield. That way, it is possible to play for one of the prizes without paying an entry fee, so long as you select Monthly Medal when you print out your scorecard, while those you pay the $5 for the radiation shield can compete for both. Also, those purchasing the radiation shield will also receive a can of booster fuel to help them break out of the galaxy.

Don’t worry if this sounds a bit complicated because Mothership Makara will do all the calculations – all you need to do is enter the Monthly Medal and/or Radiation Shield and record your round as you would normally for a net round. Women members cant enter the Monthly Medal but can play the Radiation Shield version in conjunction with their Saturday Club Par round.

Last Weekend’s Interclub Results

Last Saturday our 3 men’s teams were played the competition's penultimate round and were looking to position themselves out of relegation danger:

· Div 2 were away to top-of-the-table Mahunga where they scored 7 valuable away points, but are still not out of the woods with us being one of 3 teams who will be fighting to avoid the wooden spoon next Saturday.

· Div 5 had a very strong home win against Titahi Bay, winning 12-3 to keep them out of the relegation zone, plus they have an extra round to play up their sleeve as a result of their Martinborough match being postponed a few weeks ago.

· Div 9 went down 4-11 away to Shandon and are fighting against one other team to avoid bottom spot.

Upcoming Events

The Club Program (previously emailed but also accessible on our website, on the Events page under Members) shows us holding an Argentina National Day tournament on 25^th May, which was the day in 1810 when a revolutionary junta in Argentina set up self government. This has been a popular tournament the last 2 years, with the Argentinian ambassador hosting the event and providing a selection of Argentinian wines and delicacies after play. Unfortunately he is not available to host it on this day this year so instead, the tournament is now planned for July, when Argentina celebrate their official independence from Spain which they declared on 9 July 1816. We will give a further update of this event closer to the date.

Women’s Tuesday Club

A few hardy ladies turned up to play our Medal competition on Tuesday. The winner was Loreen Brehaut who had 36 nett and Hilary Holm on 37 nett.

On Monday our interclub team played at Martinborough against Royal Wellington. Unfortunately we were down a player so we ended up losing 2 games to 1 but all had enjoyable games.

Men’s Wednesday Club

The Wednesday Club this week played for the Nes Beard Memorial trophy for over 50 year olds, named after a former president and based on straight stableford format. Thanks to the magnificent weather, 28 members joined the competition.

With the greens still recovering from their coring, many players had trouble scoring below their pars. The two top players with the same score of 38 points had to be decided by the Dot Golf countback system and the winner was John Markham. The runner up was Peter Kennedy. Other runners up were Gunter, Alex and Saint who all had the same score of 37.

Thanks to the generous donation of Derek’s new golf balls, we could award players down to 30 points.

NTP prize went to David Norton but he missed a short putt of one foot so donated the Pig fund. The Bunny went to Chris Pearce. There were no Twos on the day.

We will soon announce the schedule of trophy competitions for the rest of the year. Victor

Donation Receipts

No doubt many of you are starting to prepare your 2019 tax returns. If you made a donation to the club in the last financial year you should have already received an official receipt to enable you to claim a tax rebate. If you didn’t receive one or if you have lost the one you were sent, let us know so that we can reissue you another one.

Anti-Doping Policing

It seems steroids are not just of interest to only top level sports people. This link clicks to an article about how a recreational surfer and keen golfer was tested by the anti-doping officials and sanctioned following the positive result.

Anti-doping Policing of Low Level Athletes

Entertainment Books – great Mother’s Day present

These are now available for purchase from the shop, or for pick up if you have ordered and paid for one on line. They make a great Mother’s Day present and cost only $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.

Happy golfing, play safely,

Your KGC Committee