Captain’s Log – January 2025

Happy New year and welcome back to another exciting year of golf at the Club. We have a full calendar of major events, competition and some new and improved fun events. Most importantly the camaraderie and friendships that make our Club so special remains constant. It is a great privilege to provide you with our very first Captain’s Log.

Opening Days

We kick off the 2025 calendar with our opening days. The Johnson Staines qualifying round for the women takes place this Saturday followed by the midweek women’s opening day on the 4th of February. Mocatta and Oldest Member Cup Qualifying for the men follow on the 8th and 12th of February respectively. Good luck to all those participating. Two changes you will notice over the coming weeks.

• 4BBB competitions will now be split into 2 divisions from men’s competitions on Wednesday, and Saturdays and women’s competition on Tuesdays based on aggregate handicaps of the pairing.
• New Stroke Indexes. The stroke indexes have been updated, commencing from Saturday 1 February, using the same method as the previous indexing. The Match Committee has analysed 3 years of data and the indexes have changed accordingly. Most of us would agree that some holes play a lot differently now compared to 5 years ago when this was last done.

After the Mocatta, the men will roll straight into the first Honour Board of the year with 2 rounds of the Sir Leslie Wilson Trophy.

Pace of Play

What is a Captain’s Log without something on slow play. We are determined to push for our round times to be 4hours and 10min. Round times will be monitored on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays in the main, however the pace of play program is able to be run on any day. For your information, we are monitoring a few parameters but the big red flag is:

• Groups that finish more than 20min behind the group in front and take longer than 4hrs 10min

If you receive any communication regarding this, please don’t take offence. It is just part of the process of improving everyone’s enjoyment on the golf course. Always remember, keep up with the group in front, play ready golf and be ready to go for your tee time.

Captain’s Challenge

Shotgun starts are back in 2025. Grab your cheese platter after the round and enjoy the social aspect of the day. From February, the Championship Layout will be in play. For those unfamiliar with this routing, it is as follows:

• 10,11,12,13,14,15,16,5,6,3,4,17,2,7,8,9,1,18

The easiest way to find your way is head to the nearest tee after each hole!

Wet Weather Course

With holes 19,20 and 21 out of play and the wet season well and truly in full swing, there are no routing options if the fairways of 2 and 3 are cut off by water. The best option to get members on the golf course is to play a 16 hole course. It does create some flow issues however if the option is no golf or a small wait on the 10th tee, the wait seems a better choice. Golf Australia allows 16hole rounds to be handicapped. This could be the Men’s Captain’s best chance of breaking 80 for a while.

Upcoming Events

There is still plenty of spots available for the 2024 Presentation Evening on the 21st of February. Contact Peter Collins in the office if you’d like to attend. You may win the hotly contested heads and tails event.

On the 28th of February, 58 lucky members will travel to Sanctuary Cove to play in “The Challenge” on the Pines. This has proved very popular. Toowoomba GC and Southport GC are again on the playing agenda in 2025. We are investigating other opportunities for our members to play other golf courses so stay tuned for that.

The NVP Shootout is back! Thank you to Peter Walker for driving this event. It’s a lot of fun and you could win plenty of cash! The qualification has been simplified. The qualifying rounds start rolling out on the 11th of February through to the 31st of August. You only need 3 good rounds to get into the big final on the 14th of September so it’s never too late to enter. See the Golf Shop for details on this.

New Competition Handbooks

This year we have published a Men’s and Women’s Competition Handbook to summarise our Honour Boards and Major Events. These documents will be updated throughout the year and copies can be found in the Member News section of our website, in the Brochure Library and also on our App. Please ask our staff in the Golf Shop if you are having trouble locating them.

Bunkers

Finally, a short note on rakes in Bunkers. The Club’s policy and the preferred location of rakes in the bunkers of the course staff is in the middle of the bunker. Not the face. It would also be great if we all tried a little better when using the rake also. Just because you won’t go back in there today is no reason to do a shoddy rake job.  Karma is a wonderful golf phenomenon. A shoeprint is waiting for you. The course staff are doing their best to get the bunkers back to their best. Let’s try and make their job a little easier.

Good luck and we look forward to seeing you out on the course.

Dean Casrtisos and Julie Brown
Men’s and Women’s Captains