  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 |
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