Well, it certainly felt like spring earlier this week, but it looks like it may have been a false start.
Despite the dismal weather yesterday, we were pleased to host the Wellington Greenkeepers Association for a tournament which, while reduced to 9 holes, was still enjoyed by all, beginning with the BBQ put on by Matt and finishing up with hot sausage rolls and party pies prepared by Anita to help soak up the liquid refreshments after play.
This Weekend’s Events
Tomorrow our women’s Saturday Club are playing Bisque Par, plus the Sullivan Cup final needs to be played by tomorrow if not already played.
On Sunday it is the first round of the men’s match play championships. Best of luck to all contestants – remember it is played hole by hole, off the stick.
Course Closed Monday
On Monday we are hosting the Wellington Men’s Veterans so the course will be closed for general play until about 3pm.
Women’s Tuesday Club
The 9 hole ladies played the back 9 this Tuesday on a perfect day with no wind and sunshine. The course was in excellent condition. Our competition was 'best 8 holes' which was won by Lindsey Pickering, 2nd was Elaine Pearse and 3rd was Kath Robinson.
Men’s Wednesday Club
Despite the wet weather forecast, 15 optimistic members turned up for the mid week competition. The weather turned out to be quite good and the short drizzle did not interrupt the play during the game. Thanks to the fantastic fairways and greens, most played quite well.
The winner was our previous Wednesday club convener, Chris Pearce with a score of 41. Runner up with same score was Gunter Karau followed closely by the previous week's bunny prize winner, Victor Diem and Keith Gaskin with the same score of 37. No more balls were handed down because we have too few players.
NTP went to Adrian Porter but he missed the putt so donated money to the pig fund. We had 2 Twos for Victor and Gunter. The most exercised prize went to Ian Patience. For Raffles, Adrian won the first prize and Alex got the second prize. We would like to thank Adrian for donating the first prize money to the club and his NTP ball.
Please note that next week we will compete for the Bogeys Cup which will be played on two consecutive par games. The second Bogey Cup game will be played on Wed 25 September.
Membership Tags
Membership tags for members whose renewal dates were in July-Sept, as well as for new members who have joined in the past couple of months, are now available for pick up from the shop desk (unless your surname begins with T-Z as these were inadvertently left out of the delivery but are being resent and should be available next week).
New Members
We are pleased to welcome the following new members who have joined the club in recent weeks: Glen & Gina Jewell, Jeremy Moore, Jacob Madigan, David Shepherd, Matthew Kell, Marcus Henry, Wellington Golf Tours, and from Portugal, Goncalo Sintra and Goncalo Leite. We hope you are all getting out on the course regularly – don’t hesitate to contact the club if you wish us to help arrange playing partners.
Systems Migration
At the end of the month, coinciding with the end of our financial year, we will be migrating our accounts across to Xero which is able to link directly to our recently upgraded point of sale system. As part of this systems changeover we will also be migrating membership details from Club Manager into the Dot Golf membership system, which in turn links with Xero. Details that will be transferred across include email addresses and phone numbers, which to date we have relied on members to upload themselves when they set up their personal profiles. We need to have all members contact details uploaded into Dot Golf in order to be able to generate renewal invoices via the Dot Golf / Xero system. An added advantage will be that members will be able to look up other members contact details via the directory on our website. This facility on our website already exists but is incomplete for many members. If you have never looked up the directory on our website, just click on the Member Directory option on the Members page of our website and then type in the name of the person you are trying to contact.
Placing on Own Fairway
We reverted back to placing on own fairway last Sunday for the men’s club championships and will now keep it at this, given the good state of the course. Although the course will have dampened up again following yesterday’s rain, and with more expected over the next few days, remember you get a free drop if your ball is in surface water or your stance is impacted by same.
The recent rain will have softened up our greens and surrounds, so please don’t forget to repair your pitch marks on both the greens and their surrounds. Here is a reminder of the correct way to repair pitch marks. If you haven't got a pitch mark repair tool, ask for a free one from the shop.
Suffering from Insomnia?
Having trouble getting back to sleep after waking up in the middle of the night and dont wish to disturb your sleeping partner.? Have you tried listing to a podcast – Brendon Telfer is currently doing a series of golf related ones which you can download for free onto your smartphone and which are great for listening to through headphones when doing chores around the house, or for playing in the car when travelling, but by all accounts are also good for winding down after a busy day or evening of TV watching or helping you get back to sleep in the middle of the night. Here is a link to Brendon’s latest podcast discussing the new rules, but which also links to his previous ones:
https://www.podcasts.nz/rules-what-rules-on-the-tee-golf-new-zealand-podcast-7/
Alternatively, for those who prefer to read to help them get to sleep, we still have plenty of free copies of the latest rule book. Just ask for one at the shop.
Love Golf, Live Long
We have previously reported research findings that show that golfers tend to live 5 years longer than non golfers. In a similar vein, readers may enjoy this video recorded at the recent British Open of how how golf saved the life of a traumatised British soldier:
Stewart Harris at The Open
This link connects to a summary of the health benefits of golf:
https://www.lovegolf.co.nz/health-benefits-of-golf
More on Handicaps
As part of the build up to the move to world wide handicaps on 1 January 2020 NZ Golf has uploaded a series of short videos on how handicaps work. Although the world is basically moving to the system we currently use, members may still find them informative – eg the difference between course ratings and its slope index. Here is a link to them:
http://www.golf.co.nz/About/Handicapping.aspx
Happy golfing, play safely,
Your KGC Committee