MEMBER NEWS
Member's Newsletter - July 2022 A Message From Russell, General Manager
Hello everyone, welcome to the July 2022 edition of our monthly newsletter! I hope you are all well and have been enjoying your golf in the sunshine! The temperatures have really started getting hot now we are into July. June was another very dry month and Ideally, we could do with some rain (overnight so it doesn't affect your games!) due to the fairways getting very dry. Whilst we have an excellent state of the art underground irrigation system, it only covers the tees, greens, and approaches. Very few golf courses have fairway irrigation. Hopefully we don't suffer a drought like the summer of 2018 when a lot of courses in the country resembled a desert! I have played our main course with some of the members recently and really enjoyed seeing how excellent the condition was. The new tees are fantastic, the fairways are in good shape and the greens are rolling really well. I even enjoyed playing out of the new bunkers on the 8th hole despite it taking me a couple of attempts! Full credit to Ross and all the greenkeepers who do an amazing job out there. I must say congratulations to the Ladies' and Men's Captains Jacquie and Mike for putting on a fantastic captains' days recently. It was great to see so many people playing and helping with a fantastic amount of money raised for charity! We are very much looking forward to hosting Simon's Seniors section on the 21st July. At the Golf Centre we are now fully into our main wedding and functions season and the adventure golf is getting busy as the school holidays approach. We have several new staff recruits who will be looking after you in the coffee bar and on the patios. Enjoy the rest of the newsletter and I will hopefully see you all soon around the centre! Best regards
Russell
Course Report From Ross, Course Manager As always, I will begin with a review of the previous months weather, obsessed with it as I am?!. Now despite my pessimistic prediction last month of June being a wet month, that certainly did not come to fruition. On the contrary, June 2022 served us up another relatively dry month and the yearly trend has continued. Even the Wimbledon Tennis tournament hasn’t woken the rain gods. I have got a 2-week holiday booked in Cornwall in my campervan up my sleeve at the end of July should we really need some rain, that will work no doubt. So, June closed out with us recording 32mm of rain, making it the 4th driest June in the past 20 years and 50% of the monthly average. Temperatures were again near the seasonal averages, although we did have a couple of peaks and troughs during the month with 4 days peaking at over 30C and 2 nights lower than 6c. More worrying are the rain totals for the first half of the year. looking at the figures for the previous 10 years we have had a lot less rain than any other year. Hopefully we won't end up with a course looking like this famous one below!
We now have in some bunkers, 2 or even 3 bunker rakes meaning you are never more than a few steps away from a rake. It would be wonderful to see less footprints in bunkers. The bunkers are fully raked by the staff at a minimum of 4 times per week. A date for your dairy – we are due to carry out some summer aeration work week commencing 18th July, nothing too severe we are micro coring the greens. It will mean a couple of days during that week that we may have a temporary green for 20 minutes whilst we clear cores off. Most of you will be familiar with the practice and have seen how well the greens respond and recover quickly from this form of aeration. Again, like most weeks of the summer we will be applying a light sand dressing after the coring process. I finish with some slightly sad news for me personally but certainly not for the individual concerned. Alfie Poulter, an important part member of the team will be leaving us at the end of this month.
Alfie first worked for me as part of the work experience scheme from his school when he was 14 years old. Upon reaching 16 years old he then worked weekends and evenings on the driving range and finally began an apprenticeship with us when he left school some 4 years ago. Alfie is off to Missouri in the USA where he has enrolled on a 2-year football academy at a state university. I trust you will join me and the team in wishing Alfie all the best for the future. Thanks Alf! Enjoy your golf and please watch out for us green keepers.Ross and the green keeping Team.
John Scheu, Our Head Professional! John's Tip of The Month! Pro’s Tip – The Chip and Run Shot! Regularly one of the biggest mistakes I see are golfers trying to play high tariff and very difficult lob and flop shots around the greens when a simple bunp and run is the far easier shot choice. Often you see extravagant chip shots chunked way short of the target or thinned through the green. Take an 8 or 9 iron, grip down the shaft and play the shot almost with a putting action, aiming to land the ball on the front of the green and letting it role up to the hole. We have an excellent chipping green by the 11th tee. Take 20 minutes to practice and add this shot to your armory. It will save you shots and saves you stress and anger of duffed chips! Good luck! John
Reciprocal Golf Please remember one of your benefits of the full membership is to play 1 x reciprocal round per month at one of the other BGL courses within the group. In order to book a tee time this must be done via ourselves in the office a maximum of 7 day prior to the date you wish to play. Please see a link to all the courses included here Golf - BGL Company https://www.bglcompany.co.uk/golf/ In order to book feel free to drop us a call or pop into the office and we can help get your booked in for an away day, you are also more than welcome to take visitors with you who will benefit from member guest rate at the club. Hoebridge Golf Centre in Woking pictured below is well worth a drive with your member friends for a free game!
Play Our Par 3 Course Please remember one of your benefits of the full membership is to play our par 3 course for free as many times as you like! Statistically, more shots are lost on par 3s than par 4s or Par 5s, so why not practice 9 holes of par 3 for free more regularly! The holes range from 92 to 145 yards.
Sustainability Update - Water Use! Most of the water we use on our golf course is from a bore hole located by the greenkeeper's yard. This natural water source helps minimise our use of mains water, especially at this time of year when we use a lot of water for irrigating the tees, greens and approaches. We also have a Waste To Water recycling centre in the greenkeeper's yard which enables us to recycle and continually re-use the same water to wash down all the greenkeeping vehicles and machinery. Here's a picture of the Water Recycling Pad in the greenkeeper's yard.
New Driving Range Netting! Last week the driving range netting on the right-hand side that blew over in storm Eunice was replaced with brand new stronger posts and net. The net is also higher at 15 metres to stop more of your balls escaping! Thanks for your patience whilst we carried out this essential work.
MEMBERS BREAKFAST IT’S BACK! Keep an eye on our specials board. After a short break the members’ breakfast will be back by very popular demand from Monday the 1st August! Unfortunately due to ever increasing costs we will have to charge you a little more than the fiver it was before. Members’ breakfasts will now be £6. Still over £3 cheaper than our standard breakfast!