Captains Updates
From Tony Brunt, Men’s Captain: The two months since we came out of hibernation have flown by, and we have been trying to make up for lost time on the competitive and social golf front. Three cup events, half a dozen club comps, eight friendly fivers and 45 Member mixers consumed, not to mention the innumerable Seniors and Ladies events!
It’s great to see so many Members back together again, getting involved with club life and enjoying the events. Our latest weekend competition, a medal, was won with a very commendable net 69 by David Holland a great score in the delightful weather, congratulations!
This month I would like to review with you a couple of topics your Admin Team have been discussing over recent weeks: pace of play, and the scope of involvement with our chosen charity.
All the effort we put into our club is to improve our enjoyment of the sport we play and to encourage involvement in the events we setup for you. I trust you will welcome and support us in our endeavours in these areas on your behalf.
Pace of Play: Whilst there is a spread of talent amongst us and a variance in the fitness we possess, one might expect the desire to get round the course in a reasonable timeframe is similar. After all there is a bar to visit, a lunch to attend, or housework to enjoy. Perhaps it is the attractiveness of such post-golf activity that may make individual definitions of ‘reasonable timeframe’ different, but we have chosen to respond to voices of concern and get our Member competitions flowing more smoothly. Whilst the time taken for a round may vary due to format, weather, number of players in a group, or handicap level, it should be part of the player’s remit to enjoy their game at a pace that does not unduly impact the enjoyment of others. I hope you agree.
It is the responsibility of each group to keep up the pace of play, meaning, each group should keep up with the one in front. This is etiquette laid down by golfing bodies across the galaxy, including the R&A and England Golf. Whilst we may wish to embellish this by including comments on the performance of a group behind or point to our watches when challenged, no, it’s the group in front setting the guide pace.
Get Golfing is helping us by supplying very nice and kind marshals who indicate to groups suffering from ‘gap-in-front blindness’ to pick up the pace so we don’t leave a gap.
However, we still have groups not paying attention and not reacting to these requests to ‘upscale’ our game. It is our chums behind that suffer from such inaction, each hole lost ahead is a 15-minute delay for those behind, you can do the maths for two or, God forbid, three holes dropped.
If we find ourselves in a group that just cannot muster the extra pace required to keep up with the jack rabbits ahead, then please follow golf etiquette, step aside and let the group behind through. If you are unsure how to best do this, the marshal will be able to help. Whilst this is not Option 1 for anyone, it is preferable to just doing nothing to help remedy the situation.
When asked next by a marshal to catch up or step aside, please do not ignore them, agree between you to speed up your process per shot and comply. This is for the communal good, your admin team is now ready to provide the help needed to the marshals and will follow up on their pace of play reports. Please take this on board in the spirit intended, to improve the enjoyment of golf for us all.
Charity News: You may recall that our charity this year is Shooting Star, a local children’s hospice. The difficult time we have experienced over the last year has meant we were not able to provide too much help to them and so made a modest contribution from the general Member funds, supplementing the Senior Men’s contribution from their own ‘war chest’.
We see this year as being little different. Whilst we are contemplating a similar path to support them this year, we also want to offer specific opportunities for us all to engage in fun events that support Shooting Star through mini-auctions, raffles, in-game activities and such like.
Although we join a golf club principally to play and enjoy recreational golf, we hope we can do so while occasionally benefiting others much less fortunate than our happy selves. Adele has now agreed to donate some of her time and join the admin team to cover events management, so will be introducing these in the newsletters to come. Muchas gracias Adele.
Competitions: Dan is now sending weekly competition updates so please get signed into these. The next Race to Le Touquet event will be the Captain’s Cup set for June 19th and 20th. It is a two-day Stableford competition offering each player two opportunities to play and post a winning score. You may play either day or both days, your best result will go forward to the leader board to count for both Cup and RtLT points. Cost and rules will be provided as you sign in via website or app. It is a new format for us to administer, but our trusty heroes, Greg and Rob, will no doubt perform their usual rock steady setup and running of the technology.
Enjoy your golf as the weather is now set to significantly improve (!) and let’s get the most out of our marshals, they are there to help us all.
