Maleny Golf Club has been celebrating not just one hole-in-one, but two historic Aces on the same hole within a week of each other during competition rounds.
The rare pair of deuces on the 9-hole Graham Papworth-designed course came just as the club prepares to expand the tricky links-style layout by bringing three new holes into play – two Par 4s and a Par 3.
Geoff Smith (pictured left) struck a majestic shot on the Par 3 Third hole from 150 metres out with a 6-iron on Saturday morning (14/4/18) from the front tee and watched in awe as the ball kicked toward the pin and went in.
Alas, his celebrity status was short lived! Members hardly had a chance to hear about his good fortune when Chris Pottinger (pictured below) took on the same hole the following Saturday with a driver from the middle Tee 175 metres out and Aced it as well.
Club President Dr Max Whitten said members were astonished and delighted to be celebrating two more historic hole-in-ones in such quick succession – reminiscent of events in 2016 when the club celebrated two Aces within 8 days.
“We were all very excited for Geoff and now Chris has done it as well and both during competition rounds too, so our congratulations go out to them. We’re still a young golf club so historic feats like these are particularly memorable,” he said.
The odds of an amateur golfer achieving a hole-in-one are estimated to be around 12,500-to-1 – let alone two on the same hole within a week.
Geoff’s Ace was the first ever scored by a male player on the Par 3, 3rd hole during a competition round while Chris’s was the first from the Men’s White Tee during a competition round.
“I just heard a tink from the tee,” recalled Geoff, a 66-year-old teacher who only returned to the game a couple of years ago and had never scored an Ace before.
“We knew the ball had hit the pin, but could not see if it went in, so I wasn’t really certain until I got to the green and retrieved the ball from the cup. It’s every golfer’s dream isn’t it?”
Chris, a 70-year-old retiree, said he too was thrilled. “I used my driver and got a kindly member’s kick off the front left bank which really helped and we all saw it go in,” he said.
Traditionally, golfers who score a hole in one shout the bar.
While Geoff got off rather lightly there was quite a contingent on hand when Chris, a tee-totaller, announced his good fortune to a field of almost 40 participants who’d just completed their rounds off a Shotgun Start.
MANAGEMENT MATTERS Strategic Planning process
Thank you to members for providing input and feedback in the early stages of the Strategic Planning process. The Management Committee has since received input from Golf Queensland, the PGA, Sport and Recreation, Sunshine Coast Council and our local business community.
On 19 March the Management Committee further developed the draft Strategic Plan outlining the direction of the Club over the next 3-5 years. The Strategic Plan will be finalized at the April meeting and presented to members at a Special General Meeting in May.
There is agreement on two fundamental directions – the desire to provide an 18-hole golf course and the responsibility to generate operating income to maintain the course.
To achieve our Vision ‘a strong viable Maleny Golf Club with a quality 18-hole community golf course’ we need to ‘provide and promote a vibrant and viable Golf Club for the enjoyment of our members, the Maleny Community and Hinterland visitors’.
Our strategic priorities are:
• Club viability
• Participation
• Course quality
• Member services
• Community engagement
What this means for each one of us as members of Maleny Golf Club is that to be a viable Golf Club and to achieve our vision, we each need to:
• Play as much golf as we can – socially and in competition
• Bring a guest or friend to play golf – once a month or more
• Spend up to $50 per week in the Golf Shop
• Invite a friend to become a member of Maleny Golf Club
• Support our sponsors so they continue to support us
• Continue our volunteering efforts
We all volunteer in different ways – contributing time, effort, expertise and money. This next phase of the Club’s development is built on the goodwill and collective contributions of all our members and friends.
The Management Committee is working with Golf Queensland (as part of their Club Support program) to recruit a Club Manager/Pro. We are also driving a number of marketing and promotional strategies to assist a turnaround in the Club’s fortunes. If we all ‘do our bit’ we will secure a positive future for Maleny Golf Club. Greens news
Alas we bade farewell to our Assistant Superintendent Haydyn Ridley in March but are very happy to congratulate Marc Kearney who has become the Maleny Golf Club’s first apprentice graduate under the guidance and tutelage of our award-winning Superintendent Mick McCombe.
Marc, a keen junior AFL player, surfer and Maleny local, joined the golf club staff in August 2015 as an apprentice green-keeper under the AFL Sportsready program.
However, Marc did not commence full time until later in the year on completion of Year 10 at the Maleny High School.
Since then Marc has worked under Mick’s guidance, studied and graduated from the passenger seat to the driver’s seat as a fully qualified green keeper.
Men’s Pennant Team Congratulations to members of our 2018 Men’s Pennant team who took out the MDSRC 2018 Sports Team of the Year Award. Captain Marcus Wellington was on hand to receive the Honour. The presentation dinner was attended by team reps Jack Day and Peter Gilbert.
Many thanks too to Jack Day for managing the social media for Competition results and Golf updates. Sponsor Jacques Fayolle, ANZ Mobile Banking was also on hand to enjoy the evening – Liz Mellish – Vice President
Design and Construction Report New holes: The 3 new Tifdwarf greens are now ready to play, thanks to the continuing efforts of Superintendent Mick, his team and volunteers. These greens are as good and challenging as the best of our first nine. The kikuyu fairways continue to improve, but with a few rough spots on the new 6th.
John Hay Rob Bailo & Tom Kennedy constructing revetted bunker on the new 6th hole.
The weather has prevented eliminating crows foot weed from approaches to each green. These will disappear with continual mowing and may require ‘preferred lies’ in some patches. All boundary fencing has been removed and the surrounding bush provides a pleasant backdrop for golfing.
One of the 3 bunkers has been revetted and a second should be completed in April. This bunker and the final bunker will be GUR or serve as turf bunkers until revetted.
Before the new 3 holes can be brought into play during April, we need to complete the following during the 2nd week of April, weather permitting:
• Returf of the new 5th tee;
• Installation of a safety barrier near the walking path behind the new 6th green; and
• Preparation of an access path for golfers passing from the 8th green to the new holes.
Maintenance Shed nearing completion.
Maintenance facility: Construction of the new maintenance facility has been completed and final landscaping is under way. Basic electrics and some final plumbing will be tackled in 2nd week of April. We anticipate that the relocation of maintenance equipment will commence in the second half of April.
Clearing the temporary maintenance facility and preparing the area for a future fairway will be addressed during May and the following months.
Final six holes: Graham Papworth has commenced design work on the remaining 6 holes. Preliminary designs for the new 1st, 2nd and 3rd holes have been completed and preliminary designs for the final 3 holes is underway and should be completed by June. Max Whitten – President
Volunteers Information Morning Tea
There have been some recent changes at the Golf Club for those working behind the counter, including the sale of alcohol under license. An invitation is extended to all volunteers (as well as anyone else interested in volunteering) to attend a morning tea at the Golf Club on Monday 23 April from 10-11:30am.
Quite a few of our regular volunteers will be absent after Easter so the club will welcome any new members keen to join our shop roster and work for a couple of hours a week in the golf shop.
Apart from thanking all volunteers for their valued assistance, the program will include short sessions on Work Place Health and Safety, Alcohol Sales, the Vend System and handling Online Bookings.
Those attending are asked to please bring a small plate of eats to assist with the catering. We look forward to seeing as many volunteers as possible whether or not you are currently volunteering in the shop or on the course.
Please RSVP to Tom Bertwistle via email at tbertwistle@cloud.com before 5pm on Thursday 19 April.
Junior Golf – Beginners Lessons
Parents and grandparents of school children, the club will commence a four-week junior golf for beginners program starting after the Easter school holidays.
Even better news is that this tuition and any necessary equipment will be provided free to Junior Members of the Golf Club! Non-members will pay a nominal fee of just $2 per session.
The sessions will be held after school every Wednesday afternoon during the Second Term for four weeks from 3.15pm to 4.30pm, commencing on 18 April (Additional dates 2nd May, 25 April & 9 May).
Parents and guardians are welcome to relax on clubhouse deck and watch proceedings. To register please call the Golf Shop on 54 999 960 or just turn up on any of the afternoons.
Captain’s Corner
With our three new holes to be commissioned shortly, the Match Committee has recently devoted a lot of time to addressing some of the issues arising from expansion of the course from 9 holes to 12. At the same time, with the benefit of a lot of historical competition data, the Committee has undertaken a detailed review of the Stroke Indices currently allocated to the existing holes to ensure they truly reflect the relative degree of difficulty of each hole. In several cases, they were way off the mark.
The first task was to determine exactly how the three extra holes would be integrated into an 18-hole competition format. That was done with the benefit of input from a number of players and it has been decided that the order of play will be as follows: Current holes 1 to 5, current hole 8 (travel to tee from 5th green via the western side of the 7th green), the 3 new holes, current Hole 9, current holes 10 (1) to 13 (4) inclusive, current holes 15 (6) to 18 (9) inclusive.
The ensuing challenges were to:
Work out the best way to put some variety into the 6 holes that will be played twice, which are current holes 1, 2, 3, 4, 8 and 9;
Ensure that, in doing so, the ladies were not set “impossible” challenges, such as teeing off from the white markers on the current 9th hole;
Establish more realistic indices for the holes currently played, based on statistical data extracted from One Golf;
Determine the anticipated degree of difficulty of each of the 3 new holes relative to that of each of the existing 9 holes;
Factor in changes in degree of difficulty on various holes resulting from the use of different tees, such as the blue tees for the men on holes 3 and 4; and
Where considered necessary and achievable with little effort and cost, seek Management Committee approval to establish an additional tee block.
Those objectives have now been achieved, with some of the more significant changes relating to variety of play being:
On current holes 1, 2, 3 and 4, the ladies will play off the white tees the second time around, with stroke indices reflecting the change in difficulty of the holes;
The men will play off both the white and blue tees on current holes 1, 3 and 4, while they will use both the current red and white tees on holes 2 and 9;
On current Hole 8, a new tee will be established between the existing men’s and ladies’ tees for use by both the men and the ladies;
On current Hole 9, a new tee will be built for the ladies adjacent to the first stand of pine trees between the 8th and 9th fairways; and
The new tees will probably be temporary in nature until permanent tees can be built.
Such a major change to the layout of a course require a complete review by Golf Queensland (GQ) of its Slope and Scratch Ratings for handicapping purposes. To this end, GQ’s Course Rater, Abby Driver, inspected the whole course on Friday, 23 March, noted changes made to it since the current ratings were allocated (such as the bunkers on Hole3) and recorded details/measurements of the three new holes. It is expected that the re-rating process will be completed shortly, so that we can start to run competitions under the new format.
The final step will be to prepare new 18-hole scorecards, incorporating changes to Stroke Indices on several holes, and this will be done soon. A 12-hole scorecard will also be introduced.
We hope you find the new format both interesting and challenging when it comes into play. For those of you who think it’s already challenging enough, I’m afraid Hickey’s Paddock is still going to be there.
Members of the Match Committee will be quite happy to answer any questions you may have about the changes.
Anyway, that’s all from me for now. Good golfing – Doug Johnstone
