DUBAI CREEK GOLF & YACHT CLUB - TOURNAMENTS UPDATE

THOMAS HALL TOURNAMENTS UPDATE

TOURNAMENTS

The start of the 2021-22 Season saw the launch of our new club tournament concept which aims to hark back to the golf club traditions many of us grew up with in the UK. This new calendar features brand new tournaments, old favourites and some tweaked classics. The end result is that you now have 26 chances to get your name on our club honours boards through dedicated Honours Board Tournaments.

Next was the Seniors Open – a staple in the Dubai Creek calendar. Our winner this year was Khaled Samawi with rounds of 76 & 77 to take a one shot victory over Robert Darrah.

Since September we have hosted six of these events already. We began with the Autumn Cup in October which was a brand new strokeplay event with the top eight qualifying for match play knockouts. Our qualifyiers were Shiba Wahid, Jerome Natali, Suneel Agerwal, John Fellingham, Beatrice Galeppini, Anish Bhatia Max Burrow and Mark Dupree. We are now through to the semi-finals and only Max Burrow, Mark Dupree, John Fellingham and Shiba Wahid remain… the champion will be crowned on Club Championships weekend.

Another new event, the Bogey Bowl, came later on in November featuring the intriguing Bogey format. Our inaugural winner of this event was John Fellingham who finished two-up on the course.

In order to celebrate the UAE’s 50th year, our Club Captain, Abdullah Al Naboodah envisioned and sponsored the UAE Shield – an individual stableford tournament. Our first winner of this very special event was Saeed Al Malik, and our best UAE National was Salem Dasmal.

Captain’s Day is always an excellent occasion and this year was no exception. Joy Lirio and Abdullah Al Naboodah, our captains this year, put on an amazing day for the members and our delighted winners were Allan Stanton and Sammy Eldin.

Finally, another brand new event for this season was the Past Captain’s Salver, a pairs scramble event designed to celebrate the contributions of our Club Captains over the years. Against all the odds, the team of John Fish and Michael Nielsen took the victory.

We are very much looking forward to getting the second half of the season underway with the Men’s Amateur Open and the updated tournaments calendar is now displayed around the club following the recent change to the UAE weekend.

HANDICAPPING

In case you were unaware, part of my role here at the club is to manage the handicap system and act as the handicap committee. One role of the handicap committee is to perform audits on the handicaps of all prize winners in our tournaments. This enables us to capture repeat occurrences of handicap manipulation that lead to improved tournament performance.

I thought it may be of interest to you to understand this auditing process:

• Compare gross score recorded in the tournament with adjusted gross score recorded on the EGF system

• Check the Exceptional Players report to ensure prize winners do not have a significant difference between their average tournament score and their average general play score which may indicate handicap manipulation.

• Visual check of the score record to check for penalty rounds or anything else that looks unusual

Actions we can take:

If a player has significantly lower tournament scores than their general play scores, we can manually reduce a players handicap to reflect their average tournament score and freeze their handicap here to see how they perform on a lower handicap.

Top Tip:

Enter your adjusted gross score (no more than a net double bogey per hole) after EVERY round that you play using the EGF app or the EGF terminal in the clubhouse to avoid penalty rounds and innacurate reductions in your handicap.

As always, if you have any questions related to tournaments and/or handicapping, please feel free to reach out to me on Thomas.hall@ hyatt.com and if you have a handicap complaint to raise, please use handicap.committee@hyatt.com (you can rest assured I am the only person with access to this email if you wish to make it anonymous).

See you around the club soon.

Best wishes,

Thomas Hall Assistant Golf Services Manager