ATLANTIC BEACH GOLF CLUB FIVE STAR GOLFING EXPERIENCE

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From the Acting Club Manager

From the Sports Centre

Hi there all!

Hope that the start of the year has been good to you all.

Our schedule for the next few weeks is tight, we have the Mid Amateurs and Ladies League both playing and giving their all. The teams need our support, so let us wish them good luck with their remaining matches!

About the Club Championships, please make sure that your entries are in Ladies or Gents. We barely have 50 entries out of our 600 members, please come and collect you entry forms from the Sport Centre and make you mark in History!

Make sure that you are all booked for the weekly competitions, so as to make sure that your scorecards are in for the monthly draw at Monthly Medal.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the members for their loyal support to the Sport Centre and to all that have taken the time to enjoy our course with their visitors and guests. Thank you very much for being the ambassadors that you are!

That’s all from my side, hope to see you all more often both inside the Shop and outside on the Fairways!!

All the Best!
Christo Pistorius



JUNIOR CLINICS

JUNIOR CLINICS are being held at Atlantic Beach!!

From the Club Captian

Dear Members,

For the shortest month of the year it has given us, thankfully, four golfing Saturdays. The love month of February has left everyone with a spring in their step, barring of course, a friend of mine who gave his golf set a bigger Valentine’s gift than his wife got. He couldn’t quite understand why she was upset, when he explained that he loved them both equally. A game that is loved and hated all in the same day and never quite understood by those who have not succumb to its hypnotic charms.

LEAGUE

I would like to thank TaylorMade for sponsoring our men’s league teams with trousers, shirts and caps. Shaun Hansen, representing TaylorMade, has always been more than generous in his support of our club and we really appreciate his involvement.

The league team has had some mixed results with losing to Bellville in the first outing, but then winning the home game to De Zalze. Well done to the chaps that participated and I am sure they will do us proud over the next months, playing and looking the part of champions. The Teams are currently lying 5th in the League.

Well done too to the ladies who have shown Great Spirit in all their outings. Sarah will provide a full report. The enthusiasm of the lady members is fantastic to see and we really do appreciate your involvement.

MONTHLY MEDAL

The February Monthly medal was held under mixed conditions. There was a mild wind blowing and the course was still recovering from the lack of water through the December month. In all we played in true links conditions. The new prize giving time of 14h00 seems to have been received well, with the monthly draw being won. Congratulations to the winners of the monthly competitions, a full list will be provided by Christo in his report from the Sports Centre. We would like to thank our Sponsors, BMW Auto Atlantic for the monthly medals. Brett Rowlands, representing BMW, has been kind enough to extend the sponsorship to include individual Trophies for the Club Championships.

COMPETITIONS

Christo is trying to bring some variety into the weekly competitions and will keep it interesting. We will be experimenting with playing more competitions off the Gold Tee’s for men A and B divisions. This increases the course rating to 73 and gives the men an opportunity to play the course in the Club Championship set up more often. Allen Bland will take cognizance of the wind conditions and only set the tee placements in the morning of the competition. We will also be experimenting with some of the tee positions for the ladies to make things more interesting for them too.

We have had quite a few entries for Club Championships already. Please get your entry forms from the Sports Centre. There is limited space available and we do not want to disappoint anyone.

We have nearly completed a comprehensive golfing calendar including all events in the Western Cape. This will be available on the website shortly. The year seems to be filled with local and international events. We have as yet not set a date for the planned Atlantic Beach Invitational or the Atlantic Beach Open. I was going through the calendar and found myself in November, without having found a suitable date. We will keep everyone well informed of the dates and all upcoming events.

FIRST FRIDAY FAMILY BRAAI

We held the First Friday Family Braai and competition with great success. The shotgun start and American scramble drive format was great fun for all. The intent of the event is fun and to introduce new golfers to the game. Please feel free to join the golf or the braai afterwards and meet with some friends, old and new. Everyone is welcome.

COURSE MAINTENANCE

WOW. Can you believe that water can have such an effect on the course condition? For the past few weeks we have been able to put the target quantity of 2 million liters of water a day on the course and we can already see a remarkable improvement. I am confident that the course will be in pristine condition to host the Club Championships. An extract of the Course Maintenance meeting will be attached to the monthly news letter to keep everyone up to speed with the maintenance projects.  Thanks to Allen Bland and his team for the great job they continuously do.

Thanks to everyone that has used the mail address to communicate with Sarah and me. Please keep the questions flowing and we will provide information where we can. Please watch the notice boards for the upcoming social events and support the club where you can. It would be fantastic to see new faces in the club and restaurant.

Regards,
Kevin McKechnie

From the Ladies Captain

Revenge Matchplay

The Revenge Matchplay was played on Saturday, 20th February 2010.  All ladies are welcome to play and on the day twenty ladies split into two teams were formed.  Namely the “Fynbos Fairies” and the “Bunker Babes”.

FYNBOS FAIRIES	vs	BUNKER BABES
Sarah Braude	vs	Daleen Weir
Sonya Behrens	vs	Brenda Dodgen
Leigh Kahn	vs	Lizanne Davidson
Lizanne Heydenrych	vs	Irene van Biljon
Stacey de Grandhomme	vs	Denise Pead
Geraldine Diliberto	vs	Amanda Hanel
Pam Welz	vs	Nadya Buchanan
Sharon Watkins	vs	Wilmeen Harris
Elaine Newman	vs	Nicola Grayson
Liz Usher	vs	Anne Litchfield

The Revenge Matchplay was played in great spirit and the results of each match were eagerly awaited as the players came in.  It came down to the wire and in the end the individual match points resulted in the overall match being halved.  Whilst in future years there will be a playoff, for 2010 the Revenge Matchplay trophy was shared between the teams.  Well played ladies and we are looking to hold another 18 hole matchplay event later in the year !!


WGWP Bell’s League

The second month of the WGWP Bell’s League has been completed with singles matchplay format in March.  The ladies are competing very well in the three leagues with the individual match results being very close.  After the second round the A League are lying 6th on the log with a narrow points difference between the teams.  The A Reserve league are lying ninth and have started to move up the log with points gained from their home win against Durbanville.  The B League is lying sixth - this is going to be a competitive league as the points difference between the teams n this league are very tight.

Of interest is that the ladies league teams host two matches over the eight month league season.  Whilst teams play a round robin format within the respective leagues, given the number of clubs entered in the leagues, the majority of matches are played away and in three-way match format.  This definitely makes the matches very interesting and highly competitive. 

League Sponsorship

I am very pleased to announce that Wendy Turton (ELCARBO Industrial Supplies) and TaylorMade/Adidas/Ashworth (represented by Shaun Hansen) have very generously sponsored our league clothing for the forthcoming season.  The new apparel is most impressive.  As fellow golfers we sincerely appreciate their assistance, particularly given that we have over a large number of ladies who play league during the year. It is estimated that approximately 30 ladies will play league during the season. 

ABGC Mixed Competitions

We have sourced from all the Cape Town golf clubs the dates for their mixed competitions.  This has been done to assist us in planning the dates for the Mixed Competitions and thereby avoid as far as possible competing fixtures.

The second ABGC Mixed Competition will be held on the 28th February 2010. There has been a great response and I wish to thank all the golfers for their support.  The poster was emailed to all the clubs in cape town and it is pleasing to see that the field has grown this month with a number of visitors playing. 

The formats for the Mixed Competitions will vary during the year, but the aim is to have great prizes, be competitively priced and to grow the number of players.   If anyone would like to play in the Mixed Competitions and is looking for players please advise the Sports Centre staff, myself or Elaine Newman and we will assist.   
The provisional dates for the Mixed Competitions during 2010 are:

May/June: date to be confirmed

15th August 2010

24th October 2010

27th December 2010

Thanks must go to Lorraine, Christo, David and your teams for all your assistance with the Mixed Competitions, 1st Family Braais and the hosting of league matches.  Well done !!
 
WGWP Championships

The WGWP Championships are being played at King David on the 15th – 17th March 2010. 
The Silver Division (+ - 18 H/C)  will be playing 36 holes strokeplay on the 15th, with the top sixteen  players qualifying for the matchplay on the 16th and 17th.  The Bronze division players (19 – 36 H/C) will be playing 18 holes strokeplay on the 16th with the top eight qualifying for the matchplay on the 16th and 17th March.

The WGWP Championships are the premier tournament on the golf calendar and Atlantic Beach has always been well represented.  Whilst entries have not closed at the time of writing this newsletter, this year seems no different.   Ladies the entries close on the 3rd March 2010 so if you wish to play and have not entered as yet please send me your entry forms which have been circulated electronically.

Rooibos Tournament

The annual Rooibos tournament is being played at Langebaan Golf Club on the 7-9th May 2010.  The tournament is always held at a club outside of Cape Town and is run over three days with three 18 hole rounds of foursomes.   The tournament is always well supported and invariably the clubs with larger entries have to be cut to ensure that all the clubs are represented.  In order to secure accommodation (which is always a premium) a provisional booking has been made at accommodation situated on the Langebaan Golf Course.  Ladies please keep an eye out for the notice of entries opening and if you would like to enter you may confirm with me prior to the entries opening.

2nd Hand Equipment and apparel

The ladies have been donating their 2nd hand golf equipment and apparel for use in the WGWP development golf programme.  However we would like to co-ordinate this amongst all the golfers at ABGC.
 
Therefore for ladies golf equipment/apparel please place these in the locker in the ladies locker room.  The locker key is available at the Member Service Centre.  Whilst for the men please hand in your items to Christo Pistorius at the Sports Centre.
 
I am sure that we all have equipment and apparel that we do not use and therefore this is a good opportunity to assist the development golf programme.

Recycling bins

You may have noticed that bins for recycling and organic waste have been placed at the golfers entrance.  When considering the volume of recyclable items that  we generate as golfers (especially plastic bottles and cans) we encourage you to make use of these facilities.  The bins are labelled for you convenience.

Halfway house

There have been a number of suggestions regarding food range and pricing at the half-way house.  This includes introducing healthier small items, salad selections, and conversely for those with a sweet-tooth slices of cake or similar items.  The portion and item pricing, together with consistency in pricing has also been raised as an important consideration.  These recommendations have been communicated to Lorraine and I am pleased to see that the suggestions have been welcomed.  Consistency in pricing has been addressed and steps are being taken to implement the other suggestions.  If you do have further suggestions Kevin and I would like to hear from you via the captain’s email address (clubcaptains@atlanticbeach.co.za).

Course maintenance

By now you will be aware that both pumps are in operation and that the course is receiving the required level of watering.  We do monthly course inspections and the suggestions and recommendations made so far have been well received.  To name a few, the on-going maintenance of fynbos along the post and rail fence, marking and repair of GUR areas has received particular attention.   Thank you to Allen Bland and his team.
Certain projects do take longer to roll-out – such as the ladies and senior tee levelling.  However we will communicate with you prior to implementation.     If you have do have any comments/suggestions please communicate these via the email address above so that they may be considered at the Green’s meeting and course inspections. 

To everyone, I need to communicate a special thanks for supporting the new golf events for 2010.  We hope that you are enjoying these events, that they are proving to be an opportunity to make new friends and that you will continue to support them !  
We are also looking to hold some old favourites such as “Night Golf” and the Green Keeper’s Revenge”.

In closing, good luck to all the league players in the WGWP Bell’s League and Mid-Amatuer League as well as to those playing in the WGWP Championships. 

Regards,
Sarah Braude

GOLF COURSE MAINTENANCE REPORT

The problem we had with the pumps lately has been resolved, and we are now running at full capacity. The golf course is greening up nicely.

In the run up to Club Championships we will be lightly fertilizing and sanding the greens. We will also be removing the various broadleaf weeds and kikuyu that are creeping in on the edge of the greens.

The entire golf course will be fertilized before winter.

This winter we will continue with our program of revetting the bunkers. We will pick up where we left off on the 7th and complete the 8th and 9th holes. We will also be completing the fairway bunkers on No.16. Next year we will tackle the rest of the back nine.

Tip for the month:
A very simple analogy to improve your green reading skills is to pretend you are dumping a bucket of water on the green. In order to find the slope of the green, just imagine which way the water would flow.

Allen Bland
Golf Course Superintendent

Click on email address to send an enquiry to membership@atlanticbeach.co.za