Hidden Pin Competition

The Pros Hidden Pin competition last Saturday was won by Ray Bobby, Dave Steepe, Mal Watters & Gary Furlong with a score of 70 on a card play off. Second was Darren Helsby, Mark Devaney, Steve Brown & John Edwards making a rare Saturday afternoon appearance!!! 

With a score of 70 (CPO). Third was Joe Clark, Les Flanagan, Bart Coppell & Mark Richards with a score of 69 points. 

There was 11 two's on hole 6 and 16 worth £10.80 per two per team. 

Ladies Texas Scramble

The Ladies Texas Scramble on Tuesday was won by The Lady Captain, Caroline Berry,Sue James & Diane Davies one of our new Ladies from our Get into Golf Lessons this year with a Nett 52 over 15 holes followed by Jill Holmes, Colinda Faulkner, Dawn Skelland & Rita Simmons with a nett 56. 

Festive Shotgun

The time sheet is out in the shop for the festive shotgun at 8.30am on Saturday, 31 December which will be over 18 holes. For those of you who have ordered the logo balls from Titleist & Srixon I have plenty in the shop now for you to collect. 

Christmas Shopping

For those of you who like me leave your Christmas shopping till the last minute new in the shop this week we have some Lynx carry bags arriving starting at £49.99 and some Waterproof Lynx carry bags at £99 which are at least £40 cheaper than other makes. 

We also have good stocks of various GPS ranges starting at £99. We have FootJoy, Galvin Green, Under Armour, Ashworth & Adidas clothing in with shirts from £20 and tops from £30. 

Tour News

Paul Waring shot one of the best rounds of the day 65 on Sunday following rounds of 71,68,68 to finish 7th in the Hong Kong Open to give him a great start to the 2016/17 season. 

Paul finished one shot behind his mate Danny Willett and now has a few weeks off before resuming next year in Abu Dhabi in the middle of January for the middle east swing.

 

Greens News

Sorry for the late circulation this week - I've been busy with non-golf club matters! First of all, I should mention that we have put out some temporary red "log type" markers on the course indicating the teeing area for the new short course at BGC. The creation of a short course was agreed at a Management Committee meeting where we agreed that this was a positive step in giving another option for some golfers. 

The short course is aimed primarily at beginners and others who find the full courses too onerous. It is not a measured course and is some 1,634 yards shorter than the existing red course. I should like to thank those of you who have commented on the course over the past few weeks - good and bad. I know that we do not get everything right all the time, although this is certainly our ambition. 

Recent comments about our removal of some trees prompts me to expand a little on our strategy regarding tree removal generally across the course. There are several different origins of the trees across our course including ancient woodland (right of the 10th pathway and right side of 11th tee into the dip), original ditch line oaks, other good specimen old trees, planted copses over many years e.g. Chalkley Wood, many decorative trees and others misguidedly planted over decades and of course hundreds, if not thousands of self-seeded trees. It is well documented over recent years by professional bodies, that our trees have been poorly managed over that past 50 years or so. (this is also true of the ponds - more of which next week). 

Many of the copses are too dense - for example when Mr Chalkley planted his wood, he deliberately overplanted the number of scotch pines with a view to the removal of up to 60% of them for underplanting with a variety of tree types to create different canopies within the copse. I do not know who planted the silver birch trees around the course, but I am guessing that they did not appear by chance. I am equally sure that they were planted with the best of intentions and perhaps whoever authorised it did not have the current professional recommendations on the need for winter sun and airflow to the greens. 

There are several examples of silver birch trees planted in the wrong place, some of which we have already removed - for example to the back of the sixth green, left of the 12th tee (only very recently removed). Another major problem with trees is that they grow! Now, this really isn't a problem in most area of the course, but many were planted or have grown close to greens or tees on the "wrong" side -I mean to the south and east - this prevents the winter sun from reaching them and giving a little help they desperately need. Also, in some cases the trees have become too big or have grown across the line of sight to the green and are now an unfair obstacle. 

The fourth green is very much a case in point as half of the green & green complex was obscured by the oak tree directly in front of the tee. Now onto general matters; I am very pleased with the performance of the greens and greens complexes. At this point I must thank you all (well almost all of you) for keeping trolleys and buggies outside the green stake lines - I promise you that it does make a difference to the quality of the sward in the scoring areas around the greens.

If you take the right side of the seventh green as an example, the quality of the surface is now significantly improved. We still have a long way to go, but Rome wasn't built in a day! The greens staff will be working on aeration this week and we shall be starting to repair the area around the twelfth tee. 

This will probably start of Thursday with a digger brought in to level the ground to meet the path at the back before turfing. The bin will be re-located! 

The course is holding up quite well at present - we can only hope the drier weather continues.