Welcome to Spring everyone!
Firstly there are three areas relating to the course that I need to update you all on;
1.At our last AGM it was agreed that, rather than doing away with the blue tees as had been proposed, the tee blocks would be adjusted so that there was a greater distinction between the Blue and White tees where possible and where the two were already very close they would be combined. Members may have noticed that a number of blocks have now been moved and some new ones established. The result of the tee movements has been that there are now nine combined blue / white tee blocks and nine distinctly separate blue and white tee blocks. The overall length of both courses remains virtually unchanged.
2.We have completed these changes as our course is shortly to be re-rated. Length of the course is the predominant determinant of a course's course rating and slope so neither should change too much as a result of this adjustment. However, just as the rules are reviewed every two years so too are the individual factors that affect course rating. Tasman Golf is responsible for rating all the courses in the district on a regular basis and it is intended that all courses will know well in advance when a rerating is to be scheduled. The results of the upcoming rerating of our course will be known in a few weeks.
3.This will put us in a good position to incorporate any changes in to our new cards. New cards will be required because, as you all know, the new rules come into effect next year. And we need to ensure we are well organised in advance as our Open in January will be one of the first tournaments to be run under the new rules.
We are fortunate to have Kevin Armstrong now qualified as a course rater and he will be involved in the rating of our course. The concrete block markers have been re-painted. In addition we are well down the path of getting new tee markers completed for our Blue, Yellow and White Tees as our existing ones are starting to look tired. While similar to the current ones you will see they are a lot smarter. As is often the case with our club there are a number of people to thank; Bob Ilton for his skill and expertise in cutting and shaping them! Geoff Blois for diligently applying the undercoat! Geoff Park for crafting the top coat! And the very supportive Friday Club for paying for all the materials. Just another example of the great people in our club who are willing to lend a hand!
Speaking about lending a hand and great people in our club! As you know we have a terrific team of woodies who work on the course Mondays and most Thursdays. It is always exciting when Richard Bullock turns up. While he is a great worker, and with due respect to Richard, the excitement is generated by the fact that he normally brings Joyce's (Famous at the Greenkeepers Shed!) awesome Bran Muffins. On a recent Sunday night Joyce enquired if he was going to the Woodies the next morning to which Richard replied no as the forecast was shocking. At 4.30 in the morning he noticed that Joyce wasn't in bed and registered that it wasn't raining (The two observations are not related!). Upon arising to breakfast he was greeted by a freshly baked pile of Bran Muffins which were later that morning consumed by Greenkeepers and Woodies. Now if that's not going above and beyond I don't know what is!
You may recall that at a recent Management Meeting we approved the building of a second Greenkeepers Shed to house our additional machinery. You will see this being constructed over the coming weeks.
A few months ago I mentioned that Geoff Park had undertaken the role of Official Pest Controller and that you may notice a few traps cunningly concealed amongst the undergrowth! He has been very diligent in his duties and I can report that he has successfully ended the lives of 19 rats, some of them very large! With the nesting season about to get underway this will surely help the survival rate of our ground nesting birds such as Ducks and Quail. We are still waiting to catch our first Stoat! An interesting fact about Tui's. They are one of our few native birds that are thriving, a fact which is certainly apparent on our course. Did I hear anyone ask why? Well the answer is quite simple. They almost never land on the ground so they are not prone to predation from cats, rats etc to anywhere near the extent that many of our other birds are.
Big Congrats to both the men's Sloan team and the ladies Pennants team. Both teams winning their competition's by one point! While the men have made a habit of winning over recent years it was great to see the ladies come through a really tough competition to win the Pennants, they came from behind having trailed Karamea on the first day. This is only the third time Motueka has won since the cup was introduced in 1983!
That's about it for this month.
Good golfing everyone.
Cheers
Peter
