October.

Welcome to October edition of Townsville Golf Club’s monthly newsletter, Tee Time. The first week of each month you will receive an update into what’s happening with the club. ‘Tee Time’ has been developed to open up the lines of communication and keep you, our members, updated as much as possible.

We want everyone to be involved in ‘Tee Time’, so if something exciting is happening, let us know about it and we can feature it in the next month’s newsletter! Please ensure all content is sent to terry.walsh@bigpond.com by the last Friday of the month!

Along with the digital copy ‘Tee Time’ will be available on the website and hard copies on the notice board.

PRESIDENT'S REPORT

Welcome to the October issue of Tee Time.

Please show respect to our new neighbours and refrain from relieving yourself in view of those neighbours.

In the next issue, Jason will be requested to provide his forward strategic maintenance programme for 2017.

Following from the previous Annual General Meeting Jessup Accounts and Business Advisers have been appointed as the new auditors.

Regarding the motion from the last Annual General Meeting, the report from Golf Queensland will be received shortly.

Due to various savings in all aspects of the operations, the overall financial has improved and this should be reflected in the forthcoming auditor’s report due in October or November 2016. As soon as the report is received the Annual General Meeting for 2016 will be called. Nominations for President, Treasurer and Captain will be called.

Please pay attention to the notice board regarding the state of the bunkers on holes 10 – 17 and the Out of Bounds (OOB) on the right hand side of the 7th Hole. The bunker surrounds will be explained by Jason Foster in the next issue.

Thanks to the members involved in “Chase the Ace” as profits received are donated to the club for grounds equipment.

New score cards and card readers will be introduced soon. These new cards hopefully will rectify the issues we are current experiencing with the card readers.

Hope your golf is going well and look forward to seeing you in the club house.

Terry Walsh
President

TGDC REPORT - IRRIGATION WATER

The provision of water for irrigation of our golf course is the single most important issue facing the club.

Members should understand that it is not a matter of “can we get water?”. There are sources available to us. The question is “which one of the available sources is best for the club.”

In making the selection TGCD is guided by the following tests:

is it secure/reliable?
is it long term?
is it affordable?

Town Water
Members will be aware of a number of media articles about the use of potable town water for golf course irrigation. Use of town water is, and always has been, a last resort . It does not meet the test of affordability. We did think that it may have been a secure and reliable option but recent decisions by council demonstrate that this is not the case. We only pursued this option because Council has rejected all other options put to them. Members should be aware that the club has NEVER taken council water to irrigate its course.

Underground Water
Up until 1974, 9 holes of the course were irrigated by bore water. There was insufficient supply for the rest of the course. This year 2 new bores have been sunk and testing undertaken. If an acceptable quality of bore water can be established, bore water may prove to be a worthwhile fall back supply but limited to providing up to a maximum of one third of total requirements

Cleveland Bay Treatment Plant
Council requested us to investigate this potential source of supply. The unwritten inference was that if that water was suitable, council may assist with the capital cost of connecting it to the course. At considerable cost to the club, this water was analysed and found to have high salinity levels.

At some time in the future council may spend the millions of dollars required to further treat that water but that does not meet the clubs present requirements.

Aplins Weir
Initially the gravity piping of raw water from Aplins Weir was our preferred option. The main attraction being affordability.

Council has consistently rejected this option.

Mining and treating council sewer
This is what we do now and has been the source of course irrigation water since 1974. There is a written agreement with council which dates back to 1974 and has a considerable period to run. When TGCD was set up, it was found that the existing plant is antiquated, expensive to maintain and operate and barely meets licencing requirements. It was decided then that whatever may be the long term water supply, this plant had to go and the government required it to be decommissioned. From that point many decisions have been taken about course layout, residential development and new club house which all depend on this plant being decommissioned.

A new STP, appropriately located, would meet the tests of security (existing agreement with council), reliability, long term and affordability. A number of options for a new plant have been identified and we are now working through a system of trials and tests to see if there is one that meets our needs.

Timing
There is a time deadline. We need to have a new water source operational before we start constructing the remaining 11 holes in mid 2017.

Please take a minute to read the Green Section Record from USGA.

LADIES CAPTAIN'S REPORT

In the last newsletter I mentioned the Meg Nunn event for which four of our ladies were picked to play.

Sandy Goldie, Jane Flynn & Margaret Trevathen who won the Gertrude McLeod race in their respective grades were also acknowledged. These women flew to Brisbane to play in the State finals of this one-day event and I am delighted to say that Sandy and Jane finished in 10th place in their respective divisions and Margaret came 16th in her division. When you think that Lady Members from every golf club in Queensland are eligible to participate in this event, those placings are a damned fine effort.

The 2-round Green Light Home Loan Challenge against Rowes Bay has been played in the last few weeks. After the first round at Townsville, the competition was very close with RB being just 3 points ahead. Scores after the second round had RB winning the overall competition by 20 points. This is a great event which promotes camaraderie between the two clubs while at the same time being very competitive. My thanks to Carol Kirstein from Green Light Home Loans for the continued sponsorship of this competition.

The Single Matchplay final was fought out last week between Carol Walsh and Debbie Gilbert. The match was won on the 18th with Debbie taking the final hole. Congratulations to both ladies on getting to the finals and to Debbie for her win. Debbie’s name will be placed on the Wendy O’keefe Memorial trophy in recognition of her win.

The Fourball Matchplay semi-finals were played last Wednesday with two very determined ladies, Elaine McDougall and Julie Laslett each singly taking on their opponents. Elaine lost her match 3/2 but Julie won hers on the 19th hole. The final between Julie and Jenny Henderson and Lorna Mallett and Gail Mullins will be played in the coming weeks. Good luck to both pairs.

Our year is now winding down with the only major events still to be played in our calendar being the Wednesday and Saturday Monthly Medal Finals. Good luck to all the women who are eligible to win those events thanks to having won a Monthly Medal through the year.

Janelle Malcolm
Lady Captain

MEG NUNN COMPETITION 2016

This year we headed off to Kingaroy Golf Club to play from the 5th - 8th September. The 6-member team comprised of 4 players from Townsville – Fiona Bell, Bev Hockings, Julie Laslett & Carol Walsh, with Trish McNeill from Proserpine and Nola Giddins from Sarina rounding out the team.

We won 3 matches against Downs & South West, Brisbane & District & Gold Coast. We tied 2 matches against Far North Queensland and Central Qld & Central Highlands and had only 1 loss to Sunshine Coast Burnett & District.

All matches were played in great spirit with some really close results. Congratulations must go to Fiona Bell who was our Number 1 player and remained undefeated for all 6 matches and she also had an Eagle!!
North Queensland finished in 3rd place behind the Winners - Central Qld & Central Highlands and Runners Up - Sunshine Coast Burnett & District.

It was a fantastic Tournament and we look forward to next years’ event which will be hosted by Brisbane & District and played at McLeod Country Golf Club.