Well that’s it! Winter is officially over; it’s now full steam ahead to Christmas. If most years are anything to go by its time to hold on tight, those Autumn gales are just out there waiting to strike! I’ll put a quick wind related ruling below for those who like those things.

But the good news is that the Club Champs are in the Qualifying stages with the main Matchplay rounds to come and Shootout 2016 is turning up its usual quota of tales of bad luck, despair and heartache- sometimes do you wonder why you play the flaming game.

A couple of weeks ago, myself and Uncle Ed met with the Captain of PBGC and the driving force behind Otaki Golf Club. At that meeting we agreed that the three clubs should co-host a tournament running over Queens Birthday Weekend 2017 with one day at each course. The details of format are still being finalised but hopefully it will involve a men’s, a ladies and a mixed event.

Twilight Golf 2016-17: Also, excitingly, we have agreed to work closely together with Otaki and PBGC during this Twilight Golf season. The day will be Thursday’s starting on the 3^rd November and running through till the end of February with a break for Christmas and New year.

We will entertain both the other clubs on different evenings on our course and they will each separately host us on theirs for an evening. Our excellent caterer, Jeanine and her staff from Party Perfect, have offered to supply food on the evenings and we’ve agreed that orders taken before golf will be ready for the golfers at the conclusion of their round. Non-participants, guests, partners and friends will be very welcome indeed to come along and join in too, taking advantage of the best meals at any golf course in Kapiti ( and further afield, I’m sure) watching the sun set over Kapiti Island from the very best deck at Waikanae Beach with a glass of something suitable, close by.

I’m hoping it could come to pass that Thursday evenings become our Club Get Together Night.

Quick Ruling: Talking of the wind as I was above. Here’s a ruling, as promised. Your ball has come to rest on the green and you’ve marked it. You subsequently replace your ball entirely correctly but before lifting your marker away, you go round behind the hole to get a better read on the upcoming putt. While you are doing your best Camilo Villegas impression, the ball is blown further from the hole by a gust of wind and comes to rest. Do you replace your ball back in front of your marker that’s still where it was or play from its new position? What about if the ball had been blown nearer the hole- would it make a difference? Answer at the foot of Pukeko Pages

See you round the place.

Cliff - Club Captain

Although a beautifully fine day, the Winter Challenge round on 2 August was cancelled due to carts not being allowed on the course.  It was very wet underfoot due to past rain.  A stableford competition was held with 45 participants.  There was a three-way tie for first with Roy South, Denys Wright and Gary Donaghy all scoring 37 points.  It was reported that the high point of one golfer's round (name withheld!) was rescuing his ball from a large puddle on the 6th fairway with a ball retriever!

Although a very cold southerly day, carts were allowed on the course on 9 August and 42 players battled for stableford points.  The winner was Ken Kissling on 40 points followed by Mel Fairbairn on 37.
A beautiful winter's day saw a field of 55 play a stableford round which was also the 8th round of the Winter Challenge.  The winners on 39 points were Roy Leitch and John Plimmer.  There is only one round of the Winter Challenge left, so four or five guys are vying for the top spot.  That will be sorted out next week.

On Thursday 18 August Levin visited us at Waikanae. There were 39 competitors in a stableford competition. The overall winner was Graeme Wallis on 38 points followed by Wayne Askew (Levin) on 37.  The local conditions must have helped Waikanae as we retained the "Log of Wood" trophy with an average stableford score of 31 compared to Levin's 26.

On a warm sunny day on Tuesday 23 August 55 entries were involved in a par competition.  This was also the last round of the Winter Challenge.  The winner on the day on +6 was Don Vautier followed by John Peters on +4.  There was only one 2 scored for the day - Ed Isaac unfortunately was not in the Shop 2's so the 14 balls were shared amongst 7 entrants using the random generator function in the computer.  The Winter Challenge was decided today.  After a bit of confusion with the scores and eligibility to play the title was shared between Roy South and John Plimmer both on 81 points.  Congratulations to you both!

A Canadian Foursomes event on 30 August tested some 53 competitors.  Playing as a team can be a bit difficult at times!  The winners on a magnificent net score of 63 were Terry Owens and John Peters.  A distant second on 68 were John Plimmer and Graeme Wallis.  The field was well spread and prizes went down as far as net 75.
 
Kevin Woodley - For Mid Week Men

Play this month has been disrupted due to bad weather, but even when the weather has been good our numbers have been down because many of our members have been away on overseas trips – among them our ladies captain, Rae Henderson.

Our ladies dinner was held on 4^th August with this year having an ‘Olympic’ theme.  The clubhouse was transformed with lovely table settings and flags from many countries adorning the walls.  The tables were set up according to countries and seating places were drawn at random in order to mix everyone up.  There was an entertaining quiz with questions pertaining to the Olympics in which Sweden prevailed and took out the gold medal!

A big thank you to Marg Cooke for her organisation and also to those people who helped to make the evening such a success.  A special thanks also to Janine and her catering staff for serving us with such lovely food.Our Shootout competition is now under way and although the number of participants at this early stage is good we could always do with a few more people to make the competition more interesting - and also make it just that little bit harder to ‘make the cut.’ 

Unfortunately, the numbers who have entered into the club championships at this time is very poor and we do need a lot more entries to make this a viable competition, ladies please think about entering, there is a notice on the board in the locker room.

Congratulation to Margaret Stewart who won the Captain’s Trophy over Chris Holland.

Jenny Shirley (for Rae Henderson)

Well, it WAS 8.30am on a Monday! Steam was seen to be emanating from 20 pairs of ears as the 9 hole members tussled with the mathematics of finding what 2 thirds of their handicap plus the course par amounted to. Nevertheless the challenge of the latest new competition (flag competition) was taken on with good humour and gusto as is typical of this group. We have been fortunate with the weather this winter and this has enabled us to try out a few new formats on the Mondays that had been put aside for catch-ups with our regular competitions.

Not so fortunate weather-wise has been the interclub Field Day at Royal Wellington which has been postponed so many times that we were starting to wonder if it was mythical. However a Last and Final day has been allocated in September. We will cross fingers that this will prove a successful date. Meanwhile the interclub players from the local clubs got together at the tenpin bowling alley where some of us shone and others (all right, it was me!) performed abysmally and decided golf was not such a bad game after all. This supportive and fun group of women are always good to play with. We meet next at the Round Robin competition that we are hosting at Waikanae on 5th September, when we will be joined by interclub and non-interclub players and a men's division from Otaki, Paraparaumu, Kapiti and Pauatahanui. This will be a straightforward stableford comp, though, with little mathematical challenge involved!

Our Open Championship is progressing well with only one more match to be played before the semi-finalists are decided, and our numbers at Club Day are swelling with the weather improving and health issues at last fading away.

I can't go away without mentioning the splendid dinner of Olympic standard that the 18 hole women organised for us all. It was beautifully catered by our Party Perfect team led by Jeanine and excellently organised and set up, with an Olympic based quiz. I can only apologise for being in the winning Canadian team who were so good (even without my help!) there were calls for drug tests and that's not all......! Many thanks to the organisers.

Looking forward to the Twilight starting up again, giving us an opportunity to play Otaki and Paraparaumu, and we appreciate being given a slot on Sundays when we can get to know weekend players, see something of our husbands/partners ( just joking!) and take part in Club Day. Roll on Spring!

Judy Stevenson - For 9 Hole Women

‘GET INTO GOLF’ – We have had a wonderful response to our exciting new beginner golf programme, places are filling fast, with a few places still available. Thank you to all the club members who forwarded their advertising email to friends and family etc., also a big thank you to Caren Martin who designed the campaign advertising and sent it out.  Only one week to go.
 
SUNDAY 9 HOLE CLUB DAY – We are starting a 9 hole mixed stableford competition on Sunday 11 September at 9.15am.  We hope this will be well supported by our 9 hole members, particularly those who can only play on the weekends.  Caryll Hewson has kindly offered to convene the competition.

Yay.....winter is now done for the year and Spring is here!!
Hopefully - this means blue skies and much warmer weather and of course longer days with daylight saving soon upon us.

All this leads to much more time golfing and getting on top of our golf games.
 
How are you going to use your time?
Playing more.....practicing more.....or perhaps a combination of both?
 
Maybe you are one of our members who plays in the Men’s and or Women’s Interclub and want to ensure you are in good form before it all starts early next year? 
If you are then may I suggest you start making the necessary changes now!
Getting it 'right' now will enable you to just go out and play with a whole lot more trust and of course a lot better results. Which is much more fun than struggling or trying to make changes during the competitive season.
I mean who doesn't like playing well and winning their matches!

Or maybe you are struggling with form right now after the tougher conditions of winter golf?
And golf is not a lot of fun for you right now?
 
Ok...so if you are going to play and practice more. What are you going to practice?
And how will you know what you're practicing is in fact correct?
 
Trust me the old adage of "practice make perfect' is far from being correct.
As only perfect practice leads to perfection.
And perfect doesn't exist anyway!
 
Video can help...but again only when you know what you are looking at as well as knowing what is actually the root cause and not just an side affect?
 
The sad fact is that the average male and female golfer has not lowered their handicaps globally for over 50 years. And yet we have top amateurs as well as playing professionals setting new scoring records with some of these records established by some of our youngest champions.
Well apart from the amazing Mr Furyk that is.
 
So why is this when the equipment and courses are so much better?
Well it's quite simple really.
Golfers tend to pass on what they believe to be correct information to their playing partners in an honest attempt to help them out.
However, unfortunately this is not always totally helpful as this game is full of some very old and extremely incorrect myths.
Hence the saying..."pay peanuts you get monkeys?" Ha Ha
And in golf like with life ...you get what you pay for.
 
So what's the best way of knowing that what you're practicing and whilst you are playing that you are in fact making the right changes and creating good habits?
 
I'll leave the answer up to you .....
And look forward to hearing from you soon - Call me on 027 4399402 or email me on kevinsmithgolf@xtra.co.nz

Kevin Smith - Class AAA NZPGA, Golf Coaching Professional

Full Playing Men - Warren Sutton, Myles Gustofson, Craig Jackson, Ben Ryder
Full Playing Women - Penny Eames
9 Hole Men - Ken Price
Intermediate - Andre Halbert
Junior -  Joaquin Llera