September Newsletter

Welcome to spring. We have had a lot of rain to start the new season. The course was closed for two days but has recovered remarkably well. Full praise must go to David and his team in getting the course ready for competition so quickly after nearly 200 mm of rain.

The Course is being prepared for the growth season with greens spiked and fairways sliced and fertilised. David and his team have been quite busy removing tree stumps with their new toy and preparing a new area behind the 11^th green social players on the course please remind them to carry a sand bucket and fill all their divots. They are continuing their programme of expanding fairway watering.

The greens have now recovered and consideration is being given to remove the local rule regarding relief from effected areas on greens.

Members will have noted that “Uluru” has been marked GUR as we have used the soil to build the mound at the rear of the 11^th green as well as the area on the 12^th where the pine trees have been removed. These new areas have been seeded and we hope that lush grass will cover these areas.

Round two of the mixed team series has been completed with the final round at the end of this month. The mens Super Seniors Pennants is nearing the playoffs with Gosford needing to beat Everglades to make the playoffs.

Mens and womens club championships are due to commence in  October and all members are encouraged to participate. The match committee has agreed to not to charge the $10.00 entry fee as in the past years.

Members are reminded that it is now a requirement to mark on their cards the holes where they have used the double par in a stroke event . Those members which use this rule are ineligible to win the medal but can win the event of the day..

A new local rule will be in place from 1 September in that all greenkeepers grass clipping left in the general area of the golf course are to be treated as GUR and members are entitled to free relief.

The match committee has decided that the Thursday competition will be available to male members. The Ladies will still have their competition off the first hole and those male members wishing to play can play off the 10^thtee. There will be two separate competitions.

When on the course members are reminded of the following

All Social play is off the yellow markers. Members please do not practice off the plates or the blue, white or red teeing areas. When practising please remember to take a bucket and fill your divots.

• Please repair all divots on the greens
• Please take a sand bucket
• Please rake the bunkers and leave the rakes in the middle of the bunkers
• Please keep up with the group in front
• Please stick to the ready golf principles
• Please do not drive carts in areas where they are prohibited. Please stay on the designated paths.

Graham Chee
Mens Captain

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After a dry August we finally had soaking rain to end the month, good news for the golf course.

The CCWGA Charity day was held at Wyong on the 12th August and was won by Toukley. Thanks to the 10 ladies who represented Gosford and congratulations to our CCWGA Brooch winners:

Division I – Lorraine Bignall

Division II – Julie Hazzard

Division III – Pam Witt

The annual Presidents v Captains event took place on the 13th of August. As always it was played in a great spirit and I’m pleased to say that the Captain’s team squeaked in by 1 point. Well done all round, Sharon & I had a very enjoyable day with Marianne and Liz.

The finals of the singles Knockout were played on Thursday 15th August. We had 2 divisions this year and we reverted to 3/4 of the difference in handicap which I believe worked well.

Congratulations to the winners:

Division 1

Anne Burke was the winner and Fay Bailey was the runner up.

Division 2

Carolyn Buttsworth was the winner and Kathy McGowen was the runner up.

Both matches were played in a friendly and sportsman like manner.

On Tuesday 27th August we hosted our annual Gosford Bowl. We had a field of 99 players and 36 visitors from 10 different clubs, a very encouraging turn out from the Coast and further afield. The hard work and planning that goes into these events paid off and the day was a great success. Well done and thank you to our wonderful committee. Thanks to Marianne & her Social group for the presentation of the room, the packing of the snack packs, the raffles etc etc. Thanks to Liz for her help with the trophy shopping, room set up & snack packing the day before. To Di and Sharon for the many jobs they did before the event and on the day to make it all happen.

Results:

Gosford Bowl 

Scratch: Kim Burke

Nett: Sue Scobie

Bronze Salver

Scratch: Deb Flanagan

Nett: Kim Cardiff

Long Markers

Scratch: Jan Roache

Nett: Meg Walker

Jan & Andy Henebury kindly organised the sale of their pot plants at the Gosford Bowl event and generously donated upwards of $400 to the Ladies.

We have now completed 9 rounds of the Top Ten Shootout and as always some good scores have been posted, one more round to go and the finals to follow on 22nd October prior to the Ladies AGM.

A new Rookies programme started this week with around 10 new enthusiastic prospective members. We look forward to supporting them in the same way as we’ve done in the past. Visitors Day is coming up on 17th September, the sheet is full and we have started to open extra lines to accommodate the extra players. It promises to be a good day and serves as our major fundraiser for our Charity of choice, Central Coast Kids in Need. We’re fortunate to have sponsorship from Creighton for the event. Thanks to Marianne Lanham for organising this. The cost is $30 for members and visitors and we have made a decision that first prize can only be won by a team with a visitor. The format is a 4 person drop out ambrose. Lunch will be the successful “build your own sandwich” again.

September sees the playing of the Coronation Medal on Monday 9th.

Di Thomlinson & Sheena Asken will play at Randwick and Robyn Krahe & Marianne Lanham, will play at Camden Lakes. The Bronze Medallion will be played on the 30th September. Bev Adams and Carolyn Buttsworth will play at Mona Vale in Sydney and Leonie Kelly and Sandy Laybutt will play at Lynwood Country Club. Good luck and thank you to all the players who are representing our club.

Club Championships commence on the 8th of October. Hopefully we have lots of entries and good weather this year.

We’re pleased to welcome Helen and Sally back from their trips away, we’ve missed them both on and off the golf course.

Sheena Asken
Ladies Captain

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August 2019 has been a month of all seasons – not to mention a downpour of rain and windy weather.

Our volunteers have responded well even in adverse conditions so we have been able to continue with our projects.

The wood sales are finished for this year and we are preparing and stockpiling timber for next year’s sales.

Our main projects this month were course clean up and tree maintenance and firewood preparation and sales and hedge maintenance.

Ongoing maintenance of trees , rubbish and loose timber pickup around the course, maintenance to shrubs,  hedge maintenance,  maintenance to the support wall at the 10^th tee , maintenance to the wedding garden walls, clean up of the paths and gardens around the clubhouse, wedding garden and practice nets, cleaning of the bush toilets and clubhouse maintenance, clean up of the greenspace gardens, replacement of timber garden edges at the 6^th, cleaning out drains after the rain deluge, maintenance to clubhouse when required.

If you have some free time on Monday mornings and you would like to contribute to our projects please contact Peter or Jan Martin.  We generally work from 7.00 am until 10.30 am with morning tea supplied by the club about 10.15 to 10.30 am.  We are currently averaging 12/13 volunteers each week which is a big help towards speedy completion of our projects.

Contacts:

Peter Martin 0437 325 207
Jan Martin 0400 430-088

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August brought with it 210mm of rain. All the rain arrived in 3 days.

So far in September we have had none.

• August 2018 – 2mm Rainfall  (Average 15mm)
• September 2018 – 34mm Rainfall  (Average 43mm)

The average night time temperature for August was 10 degrees.

The average day time temperature for August was 19 degrees.

The soil Temperature is 15 degrees.

The greens are currently getting cut at 3mm.

The growing season for us has started. We just recently verti-drained the greens with 8mm solid tines 100mm deep, to allow oxygen and water to enter the root zone. We also added calcium, Magnesium and organics while the greens were open. The greens have had their first application of growth retardant applied (Primo) to help with the green speed. A silicane product has also been applied to help with the green’s health as well as green speed. The green’s speed will start to decline as the weather warms up due to growth and the fact we need to start to apply water to the greens daily to keep them alive.

A full renovation of the greens will be done after the club champs in November.

The tees have been renovated. All 18 tees received coring with a 12mm solid tine going 100mm deep. The tees then received calcium and fertiliser to try and get some early growth and colour. Monthly fertiliser applications will follow. The tee’s also have been sprayed with a herbicide to kill broad leaf weeds as well as a herbicide to prevent crab grass from germinating in the summer.

The fairways have been aerated / sliced. That was brought forward before the 210mm of rain to allow the course to drain after the rain stopped. The fairways and green’s surrounds have also had an application of herbicide applied to kill broad leaf weeds.

Since the arrival of the excavator we have removed about 15 tree stumps from the course. Once the stumps are removed, we smooth and level the area.

The stumps behind the 11^th green / 9^th fairway have been covered with fill and we have shaped a mound to blend in to the back 11^th bunker. As with the mound on the 12^th fairway where the pine trees were, we will buy some seed to grass these mounds.

Also last week during the pouring rain we decided to clean out most of the large open drains around the course with the excavator to allow the course to dry out quicker.

The tree laying in the dam is now in the hands of the tree lopper.

The two bunkers behind the 8^th green have been filled in and the area shaped. These two bunkers were very high maintenance, and looked ugly to say the least. New turf will be laid next week and the area should be in play in 3 or 4 weeks.

David Nicholls
Course Superintendent

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