The final individual competition of the year last Saturday was won by Div 1 Mike Mcloughlin with 40 points on a card playoff from new handicap Chairman Darren Helsby with Simon Bell and his new PING G30 Driver coming 3rd on a card playoff beating Mike Edwards & Damien Gore. The best score of the day was in Div 2 with Paul McCaffrey winning with 42 points followed by Tom Scott with 40 pts who beat Dave Uden on a card playoff.

The Ladies 4 Ball Better Ball Competition on Tuesday was won by the two Jan's Randles and Evans with 45 points on a card playoff from Margaret Nelson & Jill Holmes.

The timesheet for the first Winter Competition is now out in the shop for a week on Saturday and is a 9.6.3 and there are spaces available if any of you would like to play.

I had a rather wet 3 days in Portugal as many of you will have seen with the Portuguese Masters being reduced to 36 holes. We abandoned play after 9 holes at the Old course Vilamoura which was in very disappointing condition with the slowest greens I have played on all year. We did manage 18 holes Friday at Quinta Llaranjal with one heavy shower and again on Saturday at Quinta South. My golf was a little erratic, however, at Llaranjal Dave Kimpton and I successfully beat, some would say hammered, Scott Bligdon and soon to be member Ray Young 5&3 where we had 8 gross or nett birdies on the trot before we started feeling sorry for them!

Paul Waring finished well again and flew onto Honk Kong for this week's event and then he flies onto Perth. Paul will need to move up to about 80th in the Race to Dubai rankings to get into the final events of the season.

With the International matches starting the first weekend in November "The Scots team are seeking your support so that we can field more players than in recent years. The team sheets for each Scottish match is posted in the locker room. If you would like to participate in these most enjoyable matches please add your name to the sheet or for more information contact Jim Mckenzie."

With the recent change in weather we now have plenty of Winter clothing, Bobble hats,Waterproof hats & Mitts etc in the shop not that I am praying for a cold winter!!!

Titleist have just started there free ball personalisation for Christmas between now and December the 8th on all there balls which you will be able to order from this newsletter within the next couple of weeks.

Below I have put a piece in from Rod to bring you up to date with what's happening out on the course. As well as below you may see some different mowing patters on a few holes as over the past few years some of the fairways have become narrower and narrower so we are widening certain areas. You will notice this most on the 18th between the trees and the top of the hill where the fairway was just over 10 yards wide at one point.

Bromborough Golf Club - Greens Information - W/C 13/10/2014
Wispy Rough

I suddenly thought that I "go on" about wispy rough, expecting everyone to know what it is. So I thought it might be useful to explain what it is and why we want it!

Some years ago (in the previous Head Green-keepers day), we consulted with the Agronomy and Ecology experts at STRI (Sports Turf Research Institute) and agreed that Bromborough Golf Club should adopt the policy of creating long thinned out rough (i.e. "wispy" rough) across extensive areas of rough on our course. There are different types of wispy rough as far as we are concerned - Fringing Rough and Ecology Rough.

Fringing Rough is, as you would expect, the area immediately next to the semi-rough extending where appropriate into ecology rough. The emphasis with fringing rough is 80% golf and only 20% ecology - whilst it may be long and wispy, the grass will be thinned out enough to see the ball bounce and is easy to find. The grass species in the Fringing Rough will be predominantly fescue with very little (zero is our target) of the current dense grasses.

The rough to the right of the first is fringing rough, although we still need to do some more work on the broad-leaved species to clear the density at the base of the fescue and bent grasses.

Ecology Rough is pretty much the opposite way round with the emphasis on ecology. It will be far enough "off line" to warrant the playing of a provisional ball! Ecology Rough is already in evidence on the course - the area to the left of thirteen is an example of this type of rough.

In my piece dated 15th September, I reported that we had selected some areas to start the process.

You may have noticed that there are areas of brown (dead) grass at the back of the second green, left of the ninth fairway and right of the eighteenth fairway, left of the eleventh tee and the area on the right side of the fifteenth from the pines to the ditch. This is the result of the application of "Rescue" and has had the desired effect of killing the broader leaved, undesirable grass species.

The next step in the process towards wispy rough may alarm you as we have between the 9th & 18th deep scarified the area which has removed a significant volume of sward leaving bare patches until spring growth starts.

Please, please be patient - we are following professional advice and the results will be very beneficial in the long term.

So what are the reasons for undertaking this journey?

From a playing point of view, it will be easier to locate your ball, it will give excellent presentation value and at the same time, we are helping Mother Nature.

From a financial perspective, we shall save money in the long term. The majority of our rough is dense and requires cutting on a regular basis - we spend thirty-two hours every week cutting the rough throughout the growing season. When we have reached our goal of thinned wispy rough, cutting will be twice a year! I accept that the wispy rough will also require some management, but it will be insignificant compared with the time consuming weekly rough cutting.

Once we have completed the few selected areas treated this autumn, we shall review the programme and, if successful, we shall broaden the scope of the work next year.

Finally, I can assure you that our focus remains on playing golf - the areas selected for work this year will look very "ragged" but will recover quickly in the spring and I hope, will put us on the road to our goal.

If you have any questions about the above, I shall be happy to discuss them with you. Also, if you are interested in the ecology programme at Bromborough Golf Club, I am sure the Chairman of the Ecology Group, Peter Jones would be happy to discuss their programme with you.

Rod Backhouse
Chairman, Greens Committee 15/10/14