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Australia Day, Marion Ricordeau visits, 1927 Rules, Safety on the course

27/1/2015

Australia Day. Yesterday we had a very successful modified Irish 4 ball, followed by an evening meal of lamb and peach melba – very Australian. We had about 40 golfers competing for prizes, including Australian wine, lamingtons, Australian hats, headband with Australian flag antennas, Australian bottle coolers, Australian “champagne” (or, more correctly, Australian sparkling wine) and a set of prints printed in Australia of the famous painter, Tom Roberts. The prints and champagne were donated. Pam & Don Barker, together with Wendy & Bill Pope were the winners with an excellent score of 103.

On Saturday I had the great pleasure of playing with Ian & Maggie, together with Marion Ricordeau. Marion is here in Australia competing in a number of events and had played at Mt Broughton and the tournament at Moss Vale before playing at Bowral. Last year Marion was in Australia and was billeted with Ian & Maggie hence the connection. She is ranked 22 on the European circuit and spends about 30 weeks of the year travelling. She was accompanied by her boyfriend Inigo who is on the bag for her during the tour. They live in the south of France, near Toulouse. Below you will see I have put the schedule for the next few weeks. The prize money available on the women’s European tour is not of the same scale as the women’s tour in the US. For example, at 22 in the order of merit her prize money totalled € 77,281.97 compared with 22 in the US would get USD702,691 In the list below you can click on each of the tournaments to see details about the and, if you are interested, follow her progress when the time comes. She said she was looking forward to playing on our course as she wanted to improve her approach shots and our small greens punish a wayward approach shot. She played off the blue tees and went around in par in her first game at Bowral.

The Rules. Jim Dickson gave me a copy of the Rules of Golf 1927, which was among his father’s things. Mr J.T. Dickson was a member of our club but these rules came from his time at Bega Golf Club between 1933 and 1936. The 1927 rule book has some 64 pages in it, whereas our current rules book has some 208 pages in it. We have 34 rules now compared with 16 then. Of course the rules of golf have evolved over the years and I have reproduced below a rule dealing with handicapping – it makes interesting reading.

Sympathetic Handicapping
should be discontinued

Course Safety. It was brought to my attention about a near miss recently. This happened when a player was approaching the 17th green and a player waiting to tee off on the 18th was standing between the green and the tee. It was a 'near miss'

In order to increase the margin of safety, please wait up on the tee, towards the back. The onus is always on the player hitting the ball to ensure the way is clear to do so. This is in the Rules of Golf book, page 18. (There has been a court case in Australia where a person was hit by a ball, where a judge found against the person striking the ball citing this section of the rule book.) We should never assume that a person can see a ball coming or is looking to see if a ball is coming – the onus is on a player to ensure that the players in front of them are out of range before hitting.

Marion's and Inigo's Schedule

Jan 22 2015 - Jan 23 2015
Moss Vale Classic
Moss Vale Golf Club, Moss Vale NSW Australia

Jan 29 2015 - Jan 29 2015
Renault Ladies Pro Am
Castle Hill Country Club, Baulkham Hills NSW

Jan 30 2015 - Jan 30 2015
Pennant Hills ALPG Pro Am
Pennant Hills Golf Club

Feb 12 2015 - Feb 15 2015
RACV Ladies Masters
RACV Royal Pines Resort, Benowa QLD Australia

Feb 27 2015 - Mar 1 2015
ISPS Handa New Zealand Women´s Open
Clearwater Golf Club, Christchurch, New Zealand

Mar 6 2015 - Mar 8 2015
Bing Lee Fujitsu NSW Women´s Open
Oatlands Golf Club, Oatlands NSW Australia

Mar 12 2015 - Mar 15 2015
WORLD LADIES CHAMPIONSHIP
MISSION HILLS, BLACKSTONE COURSE - HAINAN CHINA

HOME

Mar 26 2015 - Mar 29 2015
LALLA MERYEM CUP
GOLF DE L'OCEAN - AGADIRMOROCCO

Tues 20th Mowers - New Member wins - CORRECTION to date of Presentation Night - Arthur Brassey Draw

20/1/2015

Last month we had the opportunity to buy a surrounds mower with low hours. Bonnie Doon was trading in a surrounds mower, with low operating hours on it, and we took the opportunity of purchasing it. We now have 3 surrounds mowers and these are used for mowing the surrounds and now the fairways. These mowers provide a better cut than our fairway mower and we can get that nice striped effect on the fairways. We plan to sell our existing fairway mower and we should have a substantial cash balance left over. We also wish to purchase a Verti-Drain machine to allow frequent de-compaction and aeration specifically on our greens and more generally around the course. The plan is to purchase a second-hand machine for a sum not exceeding the difference in the price obtained for the fairway mower minus the cost of the ‘new’ surrounds mower.

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Notice Board in Pro-shop

The Draw

Arthur Brassey Singles Knockout. This year we had an excellent field entered for the Arthur Brassey Singles Knockout - the first knockout event of the year. This is the biggest field contending for the trophy that I can remember. We have put a notice board over in the Pro shop now, where the draws will be posted. The draws for the events are done randomly using Golf Australia's recommendations by the Pro shop. All entry fees, of course, are paid at the Pro shop and the results of the matches can be written on the draw sheet. From time to time I will be publishing the state of the draw as the various matches are played.

Jim Larkin, a new member (and in his first competiton game at the club) won the pro-pin on Saturday with a $165 prize

Our Presentation Night is coming up - correction on February 14th. Those who have won a trophy qualify for free entry to the dinner. At this year's dinner we will have a similar format to that of last year. We have a lot of trophy events and championships and these take quite a time so, as last year, we will be splitting the presentation into three shorter sections, rather than one long presentation segment. Winners and runners-up will each receive a certificate and event winners and runners-up will be called up at the same time for a "photo opportunity".

The Path Fund. On Tuesday I sent out an email with the status of the path fund so far. I have reproduced part of it below. In short, we are almost at our target. I will be reporting through this blog on the works progress. At the moment we are obtaining final prices for the works to be done.

The picture shows the 13th pond with the water lilies, planted by Dennis Cooper, which are now coming into flower

Received in the mail

Attn: Club Captains and Past Participants:
Golf NSW is pleased to announce that entries are now open for the:

2015 Golf NSW Men’s Vardon Trophy
Vardon Trophy
The Golf NSW Vardon Trophy is open to amateur male golfers, who are members of an affiliated Sydney metropolitan club, or a club affiliated with a NSW DGA, who have paid the relevant entry fee to Golf NSW and who have played in a minimum of 25 Vardon Trophy rounds, and hold a Golf Australia handicap of four (4) or less at the time of entering each event.

Once a player has played 25 rounds, he may discard his worst round, and two rounds can be discarded after 30 rounds, three discarded after 35 rounds etc. A player must play a minimum of 25 rounds in NSW to be eligible.

Entry
In order to encourage greater participation in the Vardon Trophy competition, the decision has been made to remove the $10 registration fee. As a result, entry into the 2015 Vardon Trophy will be free of charge. Entries can be made online via the quick link below. Alternatively, complete the attached form and mail / fax to our office. Entrants into the Men’s NSW Amateur Championship will receive automatic entry into the Golf NSW Vardon Trophy.

*NOTE* Entries received prior to the 31 March will have results from all 2015 events included. Entries received after this date will only have points awarded from events played after the receipt of entry.

Vardon Trophy Fixtures

>Click here to view the 2015 schedule of Vardon Trophy events.

Questions?

For all enquiries regarding this event, please contact Tom James or call the Golf NSW office on 9505 9105.

Connect with us on social media……

Golf NSW is now on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. In addition to the website, event updates, results and images will now be available on these forums. Connect with us here…

Regards,
Tom James

Events Coordinator

Wednesday 7th Jan 2015

13/1/2015

2015 Members Handbook is available at the bar for collection. Please use it in conjunction with the on-line calendar accessible from the 'Our Club' page. At the club we have a very full calendar of club, interclub and outside events. Clubhouse events are increasing with members and others holding functions at our club. A change of date for reasons such as a rescheduling, weather etc has a ripple effect right through the program. For the last couple of years we have had an on-line calendar which is kept up to date. This is the calendar that the pro-shop uses to set up the golf events. Last year we had upwards of 20 changes through the year and this year we would expect to be little different. (This year there were also some production problems with the fixtures part of the Members Handbook which didn't help matters).
Footnote: Tues 13th. Just last night we got notice of some changes that will be made to the White Horse Cup draw in the next days due to one of the teams pulling out. The withdrawal necessitates a new draw and that changes our fixtures program.

H A Murdoch Trophy
Congratulations to Paul Carroll who won the H A Murdoch Trophy, our first trophy event for the year.

Fundraising for Paths, Bridges and Fairway extensions
We are almost at our target with $13,300 being received so far with 24 members having contributed. We are aiming for $13,750 which the club will match $ for $ from the course budget making $27500.
The fund got a tremendous boost with a member donating $5000 in the last few days.

Mobile phones may only be used during competition or social rounds in exceptional circumstances. The use of a mobile phone is permitted only provided it does not delay, distract or disrupt others. Staff during the course of their duties are permitted use of a mobile phone.

Not something to try at home
thank you HM

Modesty forbids me but someone scored a '3 a 6' on the 10th in Wednesday's stableford competition. (A nine iron over the gum from 115 metres into the wind pitched 3 metres from the hole and then ran in - whoopee.)

The first blog of 2015

3/1/2015

An Eagle Christmas came early for our President - Ian Mckenzie, he scored an eagle on the 1st on Christmas eve

click to enlarge

MEMBERSHIP
Our membership now stands at 514 - up from 468 at mid year. It is always a question that comes up when we talk of membership numbers: "how many of those are playing members ?" The bar chart alongside shows a comparison between December 2013 and December 2014 - up from 293 to 355. We pay both our state and national golf affiliation fees based on these numbers - this year we will pay approximately $12,000. In the coming year we will be trying to encourage members to participate in the competitions and 'rejoin' those of us that play regularly. It is easy to get out of the 'habit' of not playing each week and a little encouragement to those 'resting' golfers may see them come back to the fold.

The sign-up sheet for the Arthur Brassey singles knock-out is in the pro- shop. The standard entry fee can also be paid there. The conditions of the competition is posted on the club notice board and are the same as last year. For those who have not entered before, members who sign up for the competition are drawn in a knock-out draw format, e.g. if 8 players enter then the first round pairs play off and then the next round, consisting of 2 pairs play off, and then to the final with the last 2 golfers competing for the trophy. It may be that 12 people sign up and then the draw is done and the 1st round will only have 12 people drawn to play the 1st round, but some of those will have a bye, i.e. they pass through to the 2nd round without having to play a round. Knock-outs are matchplay, that means that the play is hole by hole rather than the total of strokes minus handicaps over the round. Matchplay is an exciting form of the game and to allow players of different standards to compete on a "level playing course" and an allowance is made for a difference in handicaps and this difference is taken up during the course of play in accordance with the matchplay index which is on the score card. Matchplay is really great fun and for those who haven't tried it - please try.

Our computer booking system troubles.
We continue to have troubles with the club's computer booking system. This problem started in the middle of December and manifests itself by a users computer screen 'freezing' when they try to make a booking on the system with the address http://110.142.92.78/ifacts/gcsbook.dll/login shown in the address bar. To recover from this problem the computer server in the office must be restarted and now the pro-shop staff can do this when they come into work in the morning. The problem usually becomes apparent in the early evening.
What is happening to resolve the problem ? Unfortunately during the Christmas/New year period not too much as the company that we use for advanced operating system support is not available. The computer uses an operating system called Windows Small Business Server 2011 and the setup of the computer application is complex and bears little resemblance to the Windows computers that we all have at home. Over the period of this problem we have systematically tried to eliminate potential causes of the server computer crashing but so far have had no success.
What can be done in the meantime ? The booking system is normally operational during the period from 07:30 pm until around 5pm - bookings can be made in this period.

Update Monday 5th Jan
The server for the last couple of days, has been performing faultlessly, so it is hoped that the last remedy has worked. Watch this space.

Update Tuesday 6th at 6am
So the fault remains with the system stopping sometime overnight. The company that provides operating system support is now back at work and is looking at other possibilities .

CAPTAIN'S BLOG - NEWS

Australia Day, Marion Ricordeau visits, 1927 Rules, Safety on the course

Tues 20th Mowers - New Member wins - CORRECTION to date of Presentation Night - Arthur Brassey Draw

Wednesday 7th Jan 2015

The first blog of 2015

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