Oatlands Enews – Friday 10th July 2020

Content

This week’s Enews covers the following topics:

  • Covid Safe – Let’s not Become Complacent
  • Foursomes Championships – Covid-19 Modifications to Conditions of Play
  • Upcoming Clubhouse Events – Members and Guests Welcome
  • Covid Operations Update – Wednesday & Saturday Timesheets
  • From the Course
  • Golf Tips with Jeremy
  • Dennis Lenard Health Update
  • Please Avoid Wheeling Buggies on Greens Collars
  • Ride the Boom, we Deserve It – By Mike Clayton
  • NB Charlton 4Ball Knockout
  • Rules Corner – Sampling Holes made by Course Staff on Greens
  • Report Balls that go Out of Bounds
  • Weekend Trophy Event Schedule
  • MiScore App – Available to all Members to Trial

Covid Safe – Let’s not Become Complacent

Members, guests and staff are enjoying a little bit more freedom around the club with the further easing of restrictions over the last month and while the Club are doing everything required and more to comply with the restrictions the status of the pandemic in Victoria is proving that we are still in the middle of a crisis that can escalate at anytime.

As such, the Club are imploring members to remain vigilant, continue to social distance (including no handshakes which I confess I have become a little complacent with recently, Sam Howe GM) and continue to avoid the Club and get tested if you are showing any symptoms or have recently returned from Victoria.

At this stage the small number of new cases of Covid-19 in NSW are from overseas returning travelers in hotel quarantine and a few in borders towns where contact tracing has been completed however it will require everyone’s diligence to avoid an outbreak in NSW. While our membership may only number 1,000 members if we all play our part, we can keep help keep the State and the Golf Club healthy.

Members should be assured that the Club have a Covid-Safe plan in place and have been checked by Covid compliance officers on a number of occasions and have been passed as compliant so you can continue to enjoy your Club with confidence.

 We sincerely thank all our members for cooperating with staff to keep our club Covid safe. 

Sincerely,

Sam Howe

General Manager (on behalf of the Board and Staff of OGC).


Foursomes Championships – Covid-19 Modifications to Conditions of Play

With the 2020 Men’s Foursomes Championships taking place tomorrow and a number of Covid-19 restrictions still in place the Club will be implementing a modified Conditions of Play for the event.

Click here to view the Conditions of Play for the 2020 Foursomes Championships.


Upcoming Clubhouse Events – Members and Guests Welcome

With the Clubhouse re-opening on 1st June, it has been fantastic to see members back supporting our Bistro nights. With the Covid-19 situation having a direct effect on the Club’s private event revenue we are looking at diversifying the Club event offering and adding in a number of new style events at different price points to complement our popular bistro events.

Upcoming events are listed below, and we hope to see as many of you attend as possible as the allowed number of people in the Clubhouse continues to increase. Members are reminded that guests are welcome to all of these events. Birthday vouchers, new member dining vouchers and member bar credits can also be used.

Bookings for the events below can be made via the Club’s website or contacting Reception.


Covid Operations Update – Wednesday & Saturday Timesheets

From the Course

Rainfall for the Week: 4.0mm Rainfall for 2020: 769mm   Dam: 100%   Green Speed: 10 feet

This week the team has been busy preparing course for this weekend’s foursome championships. The vacuum and blowers were out earlier in the week tidying up all fallen leaves from our deciduous trees around tee complexes. The low limb pruning of trees has continued this week, with only a few more rough lines to complete next week.

Our second fungicide application to fairways was completed this week in an effort to control the patch disease (Curvularia) which appears each winter, particularly in our shaded fairways such as the 3rd and 4th. These applications are working as this disease is present in rough lines on these holes where we haven’t extended these fungicide applications to. Observant members will have also noticed that the bindii and broadleaf weeds throughout the course are either changing colour or shrivelling up. This is as a result of the herbicide applications the team performed starting 2 weeks ago. 

The 9th green has been out of play since Monday but will be back into play on Friday. This little break from play enabled the putting surface to heal itself from the high number of pitch mark damage that it had been receiving from the number of rounds over the past few months. Whilst it has been out of play, the team has verti drained this green with solid needle tines, along with the putting and chipping greens. The putting green in particular has been receiving the most amount of play during the COVID period, with players having a putt to get a feel on the speed of the greens, and also players practicing their putting strokes. Being a new green and a sand profile, we will need to treat this green a little bit differently to the greens out on the course. Extra fertiliser applications (small amounts, more often) are required as this fertiliser moves more freely through the soil profile, not being held for the plants use as is the case in our older greens out on the course.

Tee pads received an application of pigment and an iron-based fertiliser to keep some colour in their appearance during this time of the year when they are in dormancy, and no growth is occurring. Roughs have been mown this week, concentrating between the trees to tidy up winter grass growing in these areas. All fairways have been cut this week in preparation for Saturday’s foursome championships, with the blue line being painted around the 11th fairway which provides players a 30cm preferred lie if their ball is inside the blue line.

The volunteers were on the course on Monday morning, raking bunkers before the competition, gerni the pavers at the front of the clubhouse, sanding and painting the tombstones on the tees, and repairing the pavers on the path leading down to the starters hut from the putting green. Thank you again gentlemen for all your efforts this week. 

This weekend we will be cutting and rolling greens on Saturday, as well as raking bunkers for foursome championship, and only removing dew from greens on Sunday. 

Have good weekend  

The Course Team

 


Golf Tips with Jeremy

The Clubs new PGA Professional and Golf Operations Manager Jeremy Ward is pleased to bring you the first of his regular coaching video series, Tips with Jeremy. We hope you enjoy this short video on chipping and a very useful practice technique for learning to use your hands correctly.

Lesson booking with Jeremy can be made via the Club website, by contacting the Pro Shop or by emailing Jeremy directly at golfoperations@oatlandsgolf.com.au


Denis Lenard Health Update

Dennis Lenard, a long-time member of Oatlands and well known to many members, underwent a highly successful heart transplant just a few days ago. He will soon be at home and hopes to visit the club in about 4 weeks to see his many friends. We wish Dennis well for a speedy recovery and even a possible return to golf!


Please Avoid Wheeling Buggies on Greens Collars

Now that winter has arrived, Oatlands is in need of some love.  The colder weather has certainly slowed down the growth of all grass, and as a result high traffic areas will take longer to repair.  To help reduce wear, we ask all members to be very mindful of not walking between greens and bunkers.  Oatlands policy is to walk buggies directly across the greens.  Please ensure that you either:

– walk around the outside of bunkers; or

– walk from the front of the green directly to the rear of the green, not around the edge.

Additionally, please pay some special attention and ensure that all divots are repaired.  Please show Oatlands some special love by filling some fairway divots as you walk to your ball.

Most of all – Love Golf, and please love Oatlands.


Ride the Boom, we Deserve It – By Mike Clayton

The following article was written by Mike Clayton for the monthly Golf Australia newsletter;

Who’d have thought it would take a confounded virus to do what no one since Greg Norman has been able to do?

The golf prophets of doom – and there have been far too many of them – are, along with everyone else, seeing golf boom like never before.

It’s outdoors, seemingly safe and social distancing isn’t a problem if the tee shots of the people I play with are any measure.

Courses are full as so many find there isn’t much else to do in this weird world – not outdoors anyway.

There are anecdotes aplenty evidencing a boom, not just here but in the United States and Britain as well.

Woking, one of my favourite English courses, has had more than 80 membership applications since April. “That’s two years’ worth,” beamed club pro Carl Bianco.

Fraserburgh, (extra points for anyone getting the Australian connection) the seventh oldest club in the world and the oldest north of St Andrews, has, the local paper reports, “seen a boom of 50 new members”.

For anyone heading to Scotland – when next we can, of course – it’s one of those brilliant “second-tier” links you shouldn’t miss. You’ll probably get five games for the price of one at one of the more famous courses and have more fun doing it.

St Andrews Beach, one of the many brilliant courses on the Mornington Peninsula, had more players in June than they did in January at the height of the season and half a dozen extra hours of daylight.

Just as for every other public course reliant on players, the lockdown hurt. But the unprecedented volume of winter play has helped the bottom line immeasurably.

“No local football to play and no crowds allowed at the AFL has really helped us,” manager Adam Hayes said.

If nothing else, it proves golf ‘s old truism that “every shot makes someone happy”. Football’s loss is golf’s gain and we shouldn’t feel bad about it given football has driven every other game out of the sports pages with nary a care.

In another life, Matt Sullivan caddied for me in Europe but came home in search of more reliable employment and finished up as national sales manager for Callaway.

“It’s crazy out there in every category and for every brand. It’s not just clubs, but balls, hats, shoes and bags. Footballers are taking it up because it’s the only sport they can play,” Sullivan said.

One anecdote he recounted was of two blokes in Colac who walked into a golf shop and announced: “We hate golf, but can we have a set of clubs please?!”

The key, of course, is for golf to provide an environment where they grow to not hate it and eventually graduate to at least liking it … then being addicted enough to keep playing and not have the clubs rust in the back of the garage.

Said Sullivan: “Normally our custom club sets take five days to assemble and ship. Now it’s taking 15 and it’s the same at Titleist and across most other brands, too.”

Both have big testing centres in Carlsbad (California), and Sullivan tells of a local public course booking four-balls from seven in the morning until five in the afternoon every day for a month and not having a spare slot.

Nick Arnold is Sullivan’s counterpart at Titleist.

“The first month when we were all locked down was obviously tough for everyone, but since it’s opened up there are lots of people playing and the game has to embrace them and put out the welcome sign,” Arnold said.

“It needs to adapt to people who are time-poor, but lots of people have come to realise what a great game it is.”

Lukas Michel, the US Mid-Am champion, was scheduled to play the Masters in April and last month’s US Open, but instead the 25-year-old Masters of Mechanical Engineering is whiling away his time waiting for Winged Foot in September and Augusta in November by working at MGA, the driving range not far from the heart of Melbourne’s Sandbelt.

“People are walking in and asking to hire clubs, which we can’t do for obvious reasons. They walk out, buy a few clubs from the golf shop near Moorabbin Airport, come back and wait until they can get a bay to hit. We’ve never seen anything like it,” Michel said.

A friend of mine is a member at Sorrento, Victoria and The National. A couple of weekends ago he wanted to play on Saturday, and he couldn’t get a game at any of the six golf courses.

His is a first-world problem and don’t feel sorry for him, but it’s a measure of how members have embraced their clubs and made up for the couple of months when the gates of Victorian clubs were closed.

In the United States, a country with a golf culture of driving around courses in little carts, one benefit has been more golf played on foot. Image, such a quaint way to play the game.

Companies making carry bags and selling what we know as “buggies” (push-carts in the US) are seeing unprecedented demand with sales 4-8 times what they were a year ago, one source revealed.

At a time when we all crave to get back to some normality, golf is a game able to create that new normality.

Instead of talking it down, arguing it’s “too slow”, “too hard”, “too expensive”, “too stuffy”, “boring” and a “game for old men”, we can hope people see it’s none of these things.

Rather, it is a game for life, one played for fun, never mastered but where there is always someone worse than you and always someone better.


NB Charlton 4 Ball Knockout 

The first round of knockout matchplay for the NB Charlton 4 Ball Knockout took place on Saturday 4th July with a number of close matches in one of the Clubs premier teams’ trophies. The quarter final matches will take place on Saturday 18th July due to tomorrow’s re-scheduled Foursomes Championships.

The draw for the quarter finals can be viewed by clicking here.

Good luck to all competitors.


Rules Corner – Sampling Holes Made by Course Staff on Greens

Members will have noticed some holes in our greens that have been made by course staff while taking soil samples.

The question has arisen as to whether these holes can be treated as GUR or are an integral part of the course.

Club member and highly qualified Rules official John Bowring has provided the answer below;

The definition of Ground Under Repair includes the following:

Ground under repair also includes the following things, even if the Committee does not define them as such:

  • Any hole made by the Committee or the maintenance staff in:
    • Setting up the course (such as a hole where a stake has been removed or the hole on a double green being used for the play of another hole), or
    • Maintaining the course (such as a hole made in removing turf or a tree stump or laying pipelines, but not including aeration holes)

Aeration holes are excluded, but the soil sample holes are not for aeration, so according the definition they are GUR.


Weekend Trophy Event Schedule

Now that play is back in groups of 4, we are able to re-schedule the postponed weekend trophy events, while not as difficult as an AFL or NRL re-schedule, it is surprisingly complicated to fit things in once time is lost due to the number of events the Club holds. With our Major Pennant team now playing a home and away semi-final against Penrith in August, this could potentially decimate our Foursomes Championship fields.

Below is the weekend trophy event schedule up to the course renovation / closure on Sunday 23rd August;

  • Saturday 11th July: Foursomes Championship 36 holes
  • Sunday 12th July: WE Tunks Father & Son Trophy
  • Saturday 18th July: Legacy Cup
  • Saturday 18th July: NB Charlton 4Ball Knockout Quarter Final Matchplay
  • Sunday 19th July: Qualifying Round WS Targett Mixed Fourball Knockout – Top 8 pairs
  • Saturday 25th July: NB Charlton 4Ball Knockout Semi Final Matchplay
  • Sunday 26th July: WS Targett Quarter Final Matchplay
  • Saturday 1st August: Kingswood Cup
  • Saturday 1st August: NB Charlton Final
  • Sunday 2nd August: WS Targett Semi Final Matchplay
  • Saturday 8th August: Winter Medal Round
  • Sunday 9th August: Mixed Foursomes Championship 36 holes
  • Saturday 15th August: Presidents Cup
  • Sunday 16th August: WS Targett Final Matchplay
  • Sunday 16th August: Major Pennant Division 2 Semi-Final at OGC
  • Saturday 22nd August: HP Evans Singles Knockout Qualifying Round – Top 16
  • Sunday 23rd August: Major Pennant Division 2 Semi-Final at Penrith
  • Sunday 23rd August (PM) – Wednesday 26th August: Renovations / Course Closed

MiScore App – Available to all Members to Trial

MiClub have offered Clubs’ a free trial of their MiScore App which members are encouraged to trial and provide feedback on its functionality and convenience.

The MiScore App allows golfers to complete scorecards on their mobile device and can be loaded onto your device by searching MiScore App from the Apple or Android store and selecting the icon displayed below.

Once loaded simply open the app and follow the prompts. The App acts exactly like a scorecard with all of Oatlands’ hole lengths, pars, indexes and local rules built in and provision to sign the card at the completion of play (note: under current restrictions signing of the scorecard is prohibited).

Note, just like a physical scorecard when using the MiScore App you are filling in the scorecard of another player as the marker.

If you have any questions or would like to go over the app with a member of staff, please see the Pro Shop staff or General Manager.  


 

 

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