News from the Course

Many members and visiting Pennant players have expressed high praise to me that our course is in the best condition they have ever seen it. Congratulations to our dedicated green staff on a fine job.

The Greens Committee and head groundsman, Nick Goodger, have further plans to enhance the environment of the course with a study currently underway designed to clear overhanging foliage off certain tees and to plant native trees to replace some of those dead or dying trees identified on the course.

This Saturday’s Stroke Round

It has been many years since we played a stroke round on a Saturday from the White Course. Tomorrow we are playing one.

As a trial the maximum score you can have on any hole will be a 9.

Once you have your 9th shot and you are yet to hole out – pick up and record a score of 9.

Hopefully there won’t be a lot!

Slow Play

Dear Members, The Board of Jamberoo Golf Club has over the last few years embarked on a process to grow the club’s membership numbers. This is critical to improving the club’s financial viability as we face growing operational overheads and try to keep our membership fees affordable.

Readers of the Daily Cow will be aware of a number of valuable initiatives related to this goal.

Junior membership has grown substantially, and, in this regard, we appreciate the involvement of Ryan and Katie Dorahy as Club Ambassadors and Junior Mentors. Their contribution needs to applauded. While junior numbers are still a small component of our membership todays juniors represent 100% of the future of our great game.
Female Membership. Again, our female member numbers are a small proportion of the club’s overall numbers. Logically this demographic is one we needed to target and grow; it has enormous potential. Thanks to the wonderful efforts of Kim Oborn (Club Vice President), Pam Middlebrook (Ladies President), Geoff Wilson (Club Treasurer & certified golf instructor) our club was the only one in the region to run a “Get Into Golf for Women” program last year. We had 57 women attend clinics run by Geoff and a significant proportion of these ladies have joined the club and it is likely that most of the remainder will follow. Kim, Pam, and other helpers more recently initiated the “Champagne Golf” project which has kept those clinic participants playing and learning about competition golf. Hopefully they will all soon be playing regularly in our competitions.
Older Member Loyalty Program. For the past few years, the club has (thanks to Chris Goodwin former Vice President) been providing a significant membership fee discount for our older members (those over 80) who have been continuous members for 10 or more years. This has been a very important initiative to improve our retention rates among the older members, many of whom are pensioners, at a time in their lives when many face an economic choice. They understandably start to question whether it is worth paying the full price of membership when they are no longer able to play regularly due to health, health of their partner or other circumstance. The availability of this rebate and its size is reviewed by the Board each year based on affordability and other factors.

Another initiative at National level has been the introduction of handicaps well above the old maximum of 36. Handicaps used in competition can at club discretion now be a maximum of 54 for both men women. Jamberoo has adopted maximum handicaps of 45 for men and 54 for women. So, what has all this got to do with slow play? For most that answer should be obvious. If you want a healthy club and modest membership fees you need to accept that rounds of golf are going to take a little longer than they used to as we grow our competition fields to accommodate this next generation of players. Accordingly, I ask for tolerance by all our members.

We need as a club to welcome these new players. I am asking every member to take on board a welcoming approach to all new players regardless of ability, age, or gender. It is the club’s future, welcome it, and play your part in ensuring they all have a great experience and our club prospers.

Before handing over to Captain Dave to articulate the rules on slow play, I must say that it is never acceptable to hit up on the group in front. This is reckless and dangerous and should never happen. If anyone participates in dangerous play the Board will have no hesitation in taking action against the offending player or group concerned. Additionally, as in everyday life, if you intentionally cause harm to someone you could find yourself facing legal proceedings. It is not smart and you would be taking great risk in being part of such practices.

If you have a problem with slow play by a group in front of you:

Is it that your pace of play is exceptionally quick? A round of golf at Jamberoo based on state/national standards should take around 4 hours.
Are the group ahead a 4 and you are a three?
Is it a group further ahead that is slowing the play and not the group immediately in front?
Is your group in carts and the group in front walking?
You might ask at an appropriate point in play if you can play through, but first ask yourself if there is any point?
If slow play is really upsetting you why not book a time spot that avoids the problem so you can play at the pace you like, first thing in the morning or at the back of the field where there are regularly no groups in front of you for most of the round.

Above all I ask all our membership to show tolerance, you might even find that you can enjoy a slower pace of play, perhaps you might even get better scores.

Phil Hahn

President

Ready Golf and Pace of Play

The player on the lowest handicap in each group shall be responsible for the proper observance of the etiquette of golf and pace of play in their group. [If two or more players are equally handicapped, they shall share responsibility].

Ready Golf

Some ideas to help speed up play are:

Be ready to play when it is your shot and walk quickly between shots directly to your ball.
To speed up play, the honour may be taken by the first player ready to hit or preferably shorter hitters may play first. No player should play until players in front are out of range.
Hit your own shot before helping someone look for a lost ball.
Putt out even if it means standing close to someone else’s line.
If a player is delayed raking a bunker, or over the back of a green then it is ok to putt out of turn instead of waiting.
Players should immediately leave the putting green after putting. Marking of cards on greens or practising putting contributes to slow play. Player’s buggies should not be left in front of the green but left to the side nearest the next tee or near to the next tee itself.
Mark your score on the next tee as the other’s tee off.