Just when we thought we might get away with a mild winter, along comes a southerly blast to remind us of our proximity to Antarctica. But our course is looking good, so don’t let the cool temperatures put you off coming out this weekend.

This Weekend’s Events

Tomorrow our women’s Saturday Club are playing Par. On Sunday it is the first knock out round of the Westward Ho Shield for men. The draw is attached – if you are no longer able to play in it, or only entered to compete in the Monthly Medal, please let us know so that you can be replaced with a non qualifier.

Argentina National Day Tournament

Only 2 weeks to go now until the Argentina National Day Tournament on Saturday 17^th August, with tee off at 11am, followed by Argentinian catering and wines hosted by the Argentinian ambassador. It is open to all members, with an entry fee of $10 to cover the cost of catering and prizes. An entry form is on the downstairs notice board – this is the same one that we had up for when the event was originally scheduled for last month – please let us know if you had your name down for then but can no longer play in it.

Recent Results

Last Saturday our women members played for the Kings Cup, which doubles as the qualifying round of the Silver Division of their club championships. The winner, with a gross score of 84, was Fiona Kearns, one better than runner-up Mary Kavanagh on 85. Congratulations Fiona.

Last weekend Monthly Medals were up for grabs for men on both Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday the winner was Keith Atkinson with a net 72, one better than Jono Wake, Nelson Laureles and Victor Esguerra all on 73. On Sunday, the Medal was played in conjunction with the Westwatd Ho qualifier with the winner, and therefore top qualifier for the Westward Ho draw, being Grant Pollard, also with a net score of 72 and one better than Alex Lim, Eugene Doyle and Don McCrone. Congratulations Keith and Grant, you both now qualify for the Top Dog playoff on 7^th December.

Women’s Tuesday Club

The 9 hole midweek ladies only managed about 4 holes before we were driven indoors by heavy rain where we enjoyed an early lunch thanks to Anita's efficiency! Our hidden hole and putting competition will be played at a later date.

Men’s Wednesday Club

The weather forecast was accurate for the day. We started out with nice and sunny weather but it turned terrible in the early afternoon. Eleven brave souls turned up for the weekly competition but were forced to return to the club house after 9 and 10 holes. It's decided that those who paid $5 competition fees on the day will not need to pay for next week's entry. However, they need to tick their names in the start sheet on arrival next Wednesday. Please do the same for the raffle sheet so that we can monitor the situation better. Victor

Welcome Back Pat

We are very pleased to announce that Pat Redmond will be rejoining the greens staff on Monday. Having been unable to recruit a replacement for Pat when he left us as the end of last year, we are thrilled to have his over 30 years of experience back on our course, and in time to help Matt and Lukas complete some of the pressing project work before the onslaught of spring growth hits us. If you see Pat about the course, please take the opportunity to welcome him back.

Committee Update

The KGC Committee held its monthly meeting last Monday and were joined for much of it by Carmen Blackler, the Chair of Wellington Golf and WGI Board member Peter Gapes, who have been seeking feedback from all the clubs in their patch on what we expect of WGI and to discuss the strategic direction of golf in the region.

As for our course, we can report that

· Matt has been busy on the digger, most obvious next to the 18^th green, but also down the left hand side of the 11^th fairway where a spring has been bubbling away for several months now, the water from which he is diverting to the left hand side of the 16^th green, and eventually to the stream there. In the meantime, if your ball ends up over there in casual water, you get a free drop no nearer the hole.

· Following a delivery of shingle this week, Matt has today completed the drain alongside the 18^th green but has run out of paint to mark it as GUR. Please therefore treat the ropes around it as the GUR line.

· More grating for our bridges has also been delivered this week with the first priority to lay a track of it down the middle of the cart bridge on the left hand side of the 5^th fairway where a couple of members have slipped recently. Please remember to stick to the grating when crossing our bridges as the bare wooden sections can be particularly slippery in damp conditions, especially if wearing cleated golf shoes.

· Matt has used some of the recent soil stockpiles to cover the remnants of the garden on the right hand approach to the 9^th green and will now cover it with corings and replant it in grass.

· We have a supply of posts on order for remarking our penalty areas and creating new ones – once they have arrived we will organise a working bee to help get them painted, and will convert many of our yellow penalty areas to red.

· The damp conditions are promoting the return of the dreaded toad rush onto some of our greens. We will mobilise quickly to remove this before it takes off again – if you spot any on your rounds, pop it out with your pitch repairer and fill the hole with sand from your bucket.

· Now that our new tills are up and running we are looking at migrating our accounts across to Xero which our tills can link directly to, and to making greater use of the membership management features of Dot Golf who administer the handicapping and scorecard systems, plus host our website and golf bookings.

Handicapping Changes scheduled for 2020

Next year NZ Golf will be modifying its handicapping system as part of a global alignment of the various handicapping systems used around the world. Fortunately this global system is going to be based on the one we currently use but with handicap indexes being calculated from the average of your best 8 out of your last 20 rounds, rather than the current 10, and with indexes being updated daily, rather than fortnightly. There will also be modifications for exceptional scores:

• A cap will be introduced in two stages. The daily calculation will identify the best handicap index attained in the last 12 months, with the maximum a player can move out being 5.0. Once the calculation reaches over 3.0 higher there is a softer calculation to control the outward movement.
• For exceptional scores, 7 strokes better than the current handicap index, a reduction of one applies after the usual calculation for the next 20 rounds.
• For exceptional scores, 10 strokes better than the current handicap index, a reduction of two applies after the usual calculation for the next 20 rounds.

Your actual handicap on a particular day is based on both your handicap index and the rating of the course you are playing on. A Playing Conditions Calculation (PCC) could lower a course rating on the day by one stroke or increase it by up to three strokes.

NZ Golf will publish educational material closer to 2020 which we will include in future editions of the Friday Flash. For those interested in the history of handicapping, a summary of how they have evolved in NZ, courtesy of NZ Golf, is attached.

Happy golfing, play safely,

Your KGC Committee