News from the Course

November Bonus Day.

Being the last Wednesday in November the monthly Bonus day was played today.

First prize today in each division was $120.

Here are the prize winning results.

Gross Winner:   Anthony Humphries  31 pts

Division 1 Winner: Rob Phillips 38 pts $120  2nd:   George Goor 37 pts (c/b) $100  3rd: Bill Morris 37 pts (c/b) $80  4th:  Tim Ashby 37 pts $60  5th:  Ray Sheehan 36 pts (c/b) $40

Division 2 Winner: Scott Burgess 40 pts $120  2nd: Peter Hughes 38 pts $100  3rd: Jack Cashmore 37 pts (c/b) $80  4th: John Pringle 37 pts (c/b) $60  5th:  Al Thrower 37 pts $40

Balls to: 31 pts

Fourball Winners

Winners:   Anthony Humphries & Scott Burgess  46 pts (c/b) $40 each   2nd:   Joy Phillips & Rob Phillips  46 pts $30 each

Balls to: 44 pts

A Hole in 3!

Tim Ashby produced a remarkable par on the 13th today.

After taking an aggressive line from the tee, his first ball sailed out of bounds.
Undeterred, he reloaded — and then the unbelievable happened: his next shot found the hole for a 3!

A truly extraordinary par! 🎉⛳

Wednesday 19th Round.

A note from Chris Goodwin concerning the Competition held on Wednesday 19th of November

Dave, I understand the problems faced trying to organise comps, but to suggest the members would have been unable to score a Par event lacks substance. And if as you say the event was changed to a stroke event the week before, then why did my reminder (received the day before the comp) still say it was a Par event? Your attempt to shovel blame back onto the players for not reading and/or interpreting “NETT” is really quite unacceptable, considering the starter reconfirmed it was a Par event immediately before our tee off. In future I will record my actual scores when playing a par event, rather than a – or a P, but we have never been asked to do this prior to us getting the new software. There is clearly one party at fault here, and it is NOT the players

A Reply from Dave

Thanks for your comments and insights Chris.

It is true that I forgot to update the booking page when the competition was changed. In 15 years this is the first time I’ve made such an oversight, most likely due to the anticipation of my upcoming holiday and the many other things on my mind, including specialist appointments and procedures on the Friday before I left for Victoria and some unfamiliarity with aspects of the program. This caused a series of flow-on effects.

Yes the reminder did suggest a par round as that reminder works from the booking page which hadn’t been changed at that time the day before the event. The competition setup – which is independent of the booking page, and where cards are printed with the competition course setup and event – had been changed as stated. The reminder email was the unintentional flow on from my oversight. I didn’t receive that reminder, naturally, as I was not playing. Otherwise I may have been able to inform the starter before play commenced.

It is also true that the competition running sheet should not be printed the day before an event. Printing it on the morning of play would help avoid many of the common issues that arise, such as late entries, team changes, or late competition adjustments which sometimes occur. It only takes a couple of seconds to print a fresh sheet before a competition starts.

Although I realised my oversight before the round began, this unfortunately did not help the starter, who was unaware of the change and therefore gave you the wrong advice by confirming what the email reminder stated.

I strongly encourage all players to record their actual scores on each hole during Par events. This would help avoid any uncertainty when pick-ups or misses occur. Because I could not assume what the correct scores should have been for those unclear holes—and not wishing to disqualify players—I entered a score of 9 for any pickups, the maximum allowed in a stroke round at Jamberoo. I was aware that players probably scored less than this on those holes but had no evidence to assist me from my location in another state. Apparently the GA Connect system automatically adjusts hole scores correctly when recording hole scores to be used for calculating new handicaps.

It is worth noting that only six players used the “P” (pickup) on their cards, despite many recording scores well above the wipe level for a Par event, some even recording 9’s. Perhaps the others noticed from the scorecard that it was a stroke round and didn’t rely solely on what they were told by the starter or the email? A moot point.

Ninety-five percent of the field seemed aware of the change, and I apologise to the remaining five percent if my oversight caused any confusion.

Now that I am back I have reviewed every card today using Par scoring and can confirm that you were the only one among the six who might have won a ball (square was needed). The others were not successful given the number of misses each recorded. Using ‘pro-stroke nett’ to show results also may have confused some as these numbers look similar to what you get in a Par event. It allows comparison of scores when different pars are involved by players in the same competition. It was only the second time we had used this method.

Lessons have been learned, and this particular competition is now firmly consigned to the archives with a asterisk for subsequent reference.

My apologies to the members and to the starter.