Hello golfers,

Welcome to the latest edition to Bletchingley GC weekly newsletter. We hope that you're having a good week on and off the golf course. Enjoy the read.

Captain’s Blog – Par Date 18th January 2018

I hope you have all had a good start to 2018. The weather certainly hasn’t done us any favours, but the course has held up well where other courses have been closed for protracted periods.
I’d like to thank Steve and his green-keeping team for all their hard work out on the course in trying conditions to keep us all active.

Course News

Last week saw the opening scenes in Ropegate. My take on this is pretty straightforward. The green-keepers generally know what they are doing so if I must walk round a few blue ropes I’m going to do so and get a few extra steps on my Fitbit. With my habit of hooking my tee shot round the trees on the 5th it actually turns into a lot of steps, but this is good justification for an extra pint of San Miguel in the Clubhouse. I have come to the conclusion that blue ropes are in fact a social enhancer.

Competitions

The Resolution Wrecker took place last week and was a big success. The Spike Bar was packed afterwards, Viv rained prizes down on all of us and there were many amusing stories from the course. My favourite one of these was Andy Rankin walking off the 17th green with the flag thinking it was his putter!

The winning team on the day was Terry ‘The Eagle’ Gay, Andrew Rumble, Nick Mabbutt and the ever-smiling Debbie Rose. Well done to you four.

Elsewhere in our active start to the year, Mark Fuller had a very successful outing in the January Stableford with 41 points and Len Kirton won the mid-week stableford on Wednesday with 34 points in very testing conditions. Well done to both of you.

Local Rules

One thing that I thought everyone would find useful is for me to include one of our local rules in each of my blogs. I thought I would start with one that will be very useful at the moment…

Embedded ball in the rough - A ball that is embedded in the rough, may be marked, cleaned and dropped no nearer the hole providing that Winter Rules are applicable.

Social Events

The next club social event is the Quiz Night which takes place on 2nd February. This was a very enjoyable night last year, so sign up and join in the fun.

The sign up for the Men’s Away Day is now up on the board. The venue is Old Thorns near Hindhead and, by popular request, the coach trip is back. There are 50 places available and, as of yesterday, 23 people had signed up. It promises to be a lot of fun so don’t miss out.

Range Update

I would like to thank the membership for their constructive feedback and giving me an understanding of their individual requirements. What we have come to realise is that it was hard to accommodate all members requirements of what they wanted from the facility. For this reason, we have decided to abandon the idea of an annual range membership.

To simplify and avoid creating confusion we will now only offer range cards or pay as you go baskets for all members and visitors. We hope this will accommodate all member and visitor requirements.

January Stableford

Congratulations to Jonathan Dean on winning Division 1 with 34 points last Sunday. Wally Coleman finished second on 31 points. Paul Stephens took first prize in Division 2 with 33 points with Nick Mabbutt finishing three points adrift. The conditions were less than perfect with snow falling someway into the round but at least half the field managed to complete their round.

Course Update

Paul and his staff have now managed to spray and get on top of the fusarium. Straight contact fungicide was applied which goes straight to the root and kills the virus instantly. Unfortunately, this fungicide does not work when it rains or in windy conditions and thus the reason for the delay of application. The greens have received a boost of iron fertiliser and light nitrogen. The iron just gives the greens an injection to help strengthen the sward and the nitrogen will promote growth through the scarred areas. We are already starting to see some growth coming through.

The greens have been vertidrained, and we are looking to repeat this in the coming week to promote drainage and airflow to the soil. Some tees have already been vertidrained but due to the wet conditions only certain tees have been worked on. We realise there are some marks on the tees due to the tractor, but these are superficial. The verti-draining is an important part of the maintenance program to help break up the sub soil and dissipate any standing water that if left for long periods will scar the teeing ground.

Due to the weather conditions we are still unable to finish the new 18th tee. We are mindful that the season will soon be upon us but now we need a period of dry weather, so that we can rotavate, level and then turf. When we return to grass tees in March/ April the yellow tee will be on the top competition tee until, we feel assured the turf on the new tee has had time to bed in.

We are doing our best to complete all the projects set out at the AGM but as time and conditions are not on our side there might be a risk that the 2nd bunker at the back of the green will be left until next autumn.

Roped Off Areas - GUR or Not?

There seems to be an underlying confusion about the roped off areas around the course and whether these areas are GUR or not. Can I take this opportunity to confirm that these areas are NOT GUR, they are simply areas that we do not wish people to walk upon when entering or exiting the green. This is clearly stated in the club’s local rules which can be found on the main noticeboard in the foyer. If you have any further questions or would like to ask about any rule of golf, do not hesitate to knock on my door and I will try to answer any questions you may have.