MEMBERSHIP & GOLF

Membership interest continued to remain strong during the 2022/23 year. The return of the waitlist 18 months ago did little to slow membership enquiries and resulting applications, with the increase in new applications pushing entrance for new Members out to approximately 4 to 5 years. This ensures the Club remains in a strong and sustainable position leading into the future.

As a result of the lengthy waitlist, it was agreed to adjust the conditions and inclusions of new waitlist applicants. The changes include limiting course access to 6 rounds, ongoing access to the practice facility areas, and a clubhouse credit to provide engagement and a connection with the Club whilst awaiting an offer to join.

Despite initial suggestions golf rounds would decline with the removal of COVID and travel restrictions, round numbers have continued to increase steadily with the average rounds per Member sitting at 1.3 rounds per week. With round numbers increasing, Committee of Managemnet have agreed to limit the induction of new playing Members at the end of the 2022/23 season to only 20 Members, that being less than half of the resignation numbers for the year. This strategy was applied to eliminate the impact on existing Members access to the course.

The Club’s fixture of events remained full and well supported by all Members, in particular the annual Winery Challenge and Junior Foundation Days proving as popular as ever. The popularity of our Twilight Competition continues and is well supported by Members and guests, with the weekly event showcasing the welcoming and social culture Members of Glenelg enjoy throughout the year.

The Club Championship schedule has seen the event return to March, with the notion of providing the best possible Course conditions for the Club’s pinnacle event on the Calendar. This meant winners for both the 2022 and 2023 Club Championships were presented in April. The 2022 Club Championships were won by Christine Trimmer, for a remarkable fifth time, and Michael Munn claiming his first victory. Winners in 2023 were both awarded to first time Club Champions in Sarah Crocker, who benefitted from the change in qualifying conditions for women, and Kade Bryant who backed up his junior title.

The Club again featured amongst the finals in the majority of Pennant grades. Our Sanderson Cup team going down in the final against Grange. The Pike Cup team with several Juniors representing, successful in the final against the Mid North. Unfortunately, our Simpson Cup, Bonnar Cup and Women’s A3 teams all went down in the Semi Finals. Whilst in the junior grades our Sharp Cup team was victorious for the second year running.

The Glenelg Junior Foundation provided the opportunity for several juniors to attend the 2022 Australian Open held at Kingston Heath and The Victoria Golf Club in Melbourne. The trip also included an educational visit to the Golf Australia High Performance Centre in Sandringham, providing an insight to the pathways and facilities available through the highperformance program. Our Juniors were also treated to rounds of golf at a few of Glenelg’s reciprocal partner Clubs during the visit. Thanks to Vice Captain Paul Grosvenor, Customer Relations Officer Tash Bryant and PGA Teaching Professional Brayden Kelly for their organisation and supervision of the Juniors during the trip.

COURSE & MAINTENANCE

Our Course Maintenance staff have had another busy year as they continue to progress the Course Enhancement Project whilst maintaining and presenting the golf course at an extremely high standard.

Course Enhancement Holes undertaken in this season included 13, 14, 2 and 12, with the 11th well on its way to completion. As the holes are re-opened for play, there are minor works to be completed as they go through the grow in phase through to maturity. The early holes completed such as 18 and 13 are improving each day with the condition of the Greens surfaces meeting our expectations. This is quite a unique project on which the Club has embarked with majority of the work being completed by our staff exemplifying their skills and dedication whilst ensuring the design vision from Neil Crafter, Ryan Van Der Veen and Bob Touhy is achieved. This is something of which the Club can be truly proud.

Over the next 12 months we look forward to undertaking Course Enhancement Works on Holes 3, 4, 5 and finishing off the 10th with the green complex and associated bunkering, as well as the installation of the irrigation to the remainder of the hole. Irrigation upgrade work will continue this winter with a 225mm mainline installation taking place. The mainline will run between the 8th , 9th, and 10th fairways and then around the rear of the 10th Green through to the 12th fairway.

Our turf surfaces continue to be presented at a high standard with the benefits of our long-term maintenance programs. We are reaping the rewards of solid agronomic practices over the last three years. This encompasses our annual heavy renovation processes to our couch surfaces as well as our turf nutrition programs and the fine tuning of our cultural practices. We are constantly inveistgating improved technologies and methodologies to provide the best possible surfaces to meet the expectations of Members and that of a tier one golf facility.

Our work in environment and sustainability was recently recognised within the state and nationally. Tim Warren and Monina Gilbey were cowinners of the prestigious Australian Sports Turf Managers’ Association’s Claude Crockford Sustainability and Environment Award as well as scooping the pool at the Clubs South Australia Awards with: Tim receiving Manager of the Year, Monina receiving Employee of the Year and the Club receiving the Environmental Awareness Award. We were also awarded the Clubs SA, Club of the Year (large) award. In addition the Club was nominated for the Biodiversity category at the National Banksia Sustainability Awards – the first golf club to be nominated in the 34 years of this award.

Our social media accounts on Instagram and Facebook continue to grow with a wide audience and a combined reach of over 106,000 accounts. We see the engagement with social media a great way to promote and celebrate the positive work that our team and Club are achieving, and demonstrating that we are at the forefront of Course management nationally.

BIODIVERSITY & VEGETATION

We have continued our work with implementing the Green Adelaide Grassroots Grant in collaboration with Kooyonga, Grange and Royal Adelaide Golf Clubs. The grant will fund 18,000 plants across the four courses over four years, as well as providing educational workshops.

We have supported a Coastal Invertebrates study and an urban microbat study. The surveys found 344 insect species living at our course – over 70 species unique to our course, including seven dragonfly and damselfly species – and five microbat species, including one microbat species which isn’t often seen on the Adelaide Plains. The identification of all these species along with the rare microbat species, highlights the well-functioning ecosystem and the positive impacts our biodiversity programme has on the environment. Our current programme provides significant environmental health benefits to not only our Course but our local surrounding Community. Our on-ground works have included the planting around the 13th green and planting the naturalised rough between the 14th and 18th . These plantings include plants of conservation significance. We will soon plant over 100 advanced native pines grown in our nursery, as well as more than 1,500 more shrubs, groundcovers and flowers.

Our Course Enhancement Plan has included a tree planting program, with course staff planting in excess of 400 native tree species since the program begun. This includes the planting of 30 Stone Pines (Pinus Pinea), with the remaining plantings being Native Pines (Callitris preissil) and Drooping Sheoaks (Allocasuarina verticillate). The Native Pines are indigenous to the Adelaide plains and the sandy soils of the coastal belt and will continue to be planted as one of the preferred tree species. The programme includes the removal of the Swamp Sheoak (Allocasuarina glauca) identified as a weedy species and not being suitable and manageable into the future. Trees being replaced are on a five-to-one basis – for every tree removed, five (or more) are planted. The Native Pines have been planted in copses to create screening and provide habitat for the Thornbills and other small birds that visit our course. Two indigenous (locally native) tree species have been potted on and grown in our nursery over the last few years so that the trees planted will be at a more advanced stage (rather than planting tube stock).

Volunteers

Our loyal band of course volunteers continued to support our course staff throughout the year including sanding and oiling course furniture; removing weedy plant species; raking scarifyings during renovations; raking of pine needles and pinecones, emptying rubbish bins and filling sand bins. This has seen a voluntary contribution of at least 380 hours and we cannot thank this group enough. The work our volunteers do is very much appreciated by the Committee, Management and all of our Members. We are certain more volunteers would be welcome to join this Tuesday group.