News Archive

Rough mowing

After a very harsh Summer, the recent Autumn rains have been a godsend for the course.  With the cooler weather and moisture in the ground, it has been a very rapid growing season. Which has led to the rough growing quickly and densely.   Golf balls are easily lost in these areas – and we accept that this is slowing play down, as well as being extremely frustrating for players that find themselves searching for golf balls continually.  The initial rough cutting is underway, and this is at a slightly longer length than is normal – this is to enable the greens staff to mow the course quickly.  There will be a second cut underway in which the mower heights will be cut lower.  Another cut may be undertaken prior to the frosts – and the growth should slow dramatically once we get to the minus’.  We thank you for your patience

Update for Members…..20 April 20

All Members

Another week has passed and following our regular discussion with CEO Ainslie the following will apply unless you are informed otherwise:

From last week….with the minor change of the Timesheet opening times reverting to normal. 

• Members are to limit themselves to booking in advance for two (2) competition games per week only. This will allow everyone the greatest opportunity to plan and play their golf.
• Members are welcome to book in for additional competitions rounds of golf if there is a vacant spot after 4.00pm on the day prior to the competition.
• All Honour Board events: Monthly Medals, Matchplay events etc. will be suspended.  A further decision on which Honour Board events will be run in 2020 will be taken when physical distancing restrictions are relaxed. For the time being all events are Pro-shop run competitions.
• Timesheets for all competitions will open 7 days prior at 7.00 pm.

New this week….

• The toilets at the halfway house will remain open but we implore members to be very conscious about the cleanliness of this facility. Please use the disinfectant provided and have some personal hand sanitiser to use, post using the toilet.  Remember, the COVID 19 virus remains on stainless steel for much longer than it remains on other surfaces.   If the toilets are to remain open, we the users, must take every precaution.  The toilets will be cleaned every day that the course is open and will be locked on the days that it is not.
• The course open days for this week will be the same as for last week. Competitions will be held on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. 
• Next Monday is the Anzac Day public holiday and we will run our normal public holiday competition on this day, so for next week the course will be open and competitions will be run on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

We will continue to talk to Ainslie about getting the course back to full operation noting the difficulty of the trading environment, particularly for Murray as the Club Professional.  CEO Ainslie continues to be happy to reassess the days open at the beginning of each week, as we have been doing for the past few weeks.  Hopefully, at least six days regularly in the near future and then maybe more.

CEO Ainslie, in his latest email to me, thanked the Committee and its Executive members for work that has been done in managing the recent changes.  I would like to reiterate this and also add my thanks to you the members, for bearing with us as we work to repair the course and, in the context of COVID 19, bring us back to full operation.

Good golfing.

Richard Oliver/President

Advice to members …. halfway house toilets will be open commencing 18 April – Update 17 April 20

All Members

Apologies for the latest of this advice.  We have agreed with the CEO Ainslie that the toilets at the halfway house will be open commencing 19 April.  Please note that although the tap will be available for hand-rinsing we would ask that members carry with them some hand sanitiser for their personal use, after using the toilets.  As you will appreciate hand sanitiser is a hard-to-come-by product and, if supplied, is likely to disappear in the current environment.  

Our thanks to you for your patience, as we deal with the issues relating to COVID 19 on the course.

Richard Oliver/President

We are getting there……more course time and some additional measures – Update 14 April 20

All Members 

Firstly, thank you for the understanding response to our requests for people to limit their competition games to help those working to get their games in on the weekends.  With the two people tee-offs we are only able to accommodate around 90 players per competition which means some players are not getting their preferred slots and days.  We appreciate your understanding of the situation and we are working with Ainslie and Murray to bring the course back to full operation, as soon as possible. 

As a committee we are trying our hardest to ensure all members have a fair and equitable access to our course and competitions. After discussion with Ainslie, the Committee and Murray we will be opening a competition on Fridays to try to alleviate some of the access issues. We have also decreased the tee time intervals to 6 minutes and added additional early morning tee times (while daylight hours allow).

 The Committee has also decided that until circumstances return to some sort of normalcy the following restrictions will apply: 

• Members are to limit themselves to booking in advance for two (2) competition games per week  This will allow everyone the greatest opportunity to plan and play their golf.
• Members are welcome to book in for additional competitions rounds of golf if there is a vacant spot after 4.00pm on the day prior to the competition.
• All Honour Board events: Monthly Medals, Matchplay etc. events will be suspended.  A further decision on which Honour Board events will be run in 2020 will be taken when physical distancing restrictions are relaxed. For the time being all events are Pro-shop run competitions.
• Timesheets for both Saturday and Sunday events will now be open at the same time – 7 pm on the Saturday of the weekend prior.

With everyone’s current work and lifestyle arrangements being different we ask everyone to be considerate when booking. In particular, if you can play on a weekday, we ask that you consider playing one or both of your two competition rounds on Tuesday, Wednesday or Friday to allow those members still working greater access to the weekend time sheets. 

The Committee will continue to review these arrangements weekly in order to ensure members are not missing out on playing competition golf.  Hopefully any further changes will be relaxing, rather than tightening, these restrictions.

Once again, we thank you for the part you will play in ensuring that our full membership body will have the best access to the course and competitions we are able to provide. 

Our next Update will be provided next Monday or earlier, if there is something of significance to report.

Richard Oliver/President   

Summary from the Golf Club Committee meeting held on 9 April…..

The following items were discussed and outcomes recorded for the Golf Club Committee meeting on 9 April: 

Reports – Reports from the relevant members were taken as read and issues discussed as appropriate.

Ainslie Group and the Golf Club – Richard has been in regular contact with CEO Ainslie over the past couple of weeks regarding the operation of the Golf Club.  The key outcomes from these meeting have been provided to members in the Updates posted to the Website and Facebook.  The next Update will be provided early in the week commencing 13 April.

Capital budget – We are yet to catch up with Ainslie to get better definition around planned Capital expenditure in 2020.  As members would expect, with the ceased operation of the licenced club, funding for Capital Projects is likely to be significantly affected.  The AFSC will need to redirect funding to its staff and essential operations.  I will further update members on this when more is known.

Sponsorship – The Golf Club wrote to local business in the Gungahlin areas advising of the availability of sponsorship opportunities. Follow-up with the targeted businesses will occur when businesses have re-opened for trading.

Dad’s Army – Work has been suspended until further notice in line with the COVID 19 restrictions. 

Greens – The repairs to the course continue and with the recent good rain falls, it is rapidly coming back to its former glory.  We estimate the repair is at around 70% and we are hoping with around 3-4 weeks remaining before the frosts begin that the good grass growth will continue and we will have a good cover before Winter begins.  To help care for the course while it repairs Preferred Lies will continue, until you are informed otherwise.

The Club’s Website – One of the priorities for the club in 2020 is the re-design of our Website with the intent of making it easier to use, more intuitive and for us to be able to locate information/content much more easily.  We have agreed a funding package for this work and will now seek quotes for the work to be done.  This will not affect to operation of the current site as the new work will be done outside the current Web environment.

MiScore App – The Committee noted the trial being run by Murray and will talk with Murray about how he finds the product and how well it dovetails with the way we currently operate.

Honour Board updates – we have Ainslie’s permission to enter the AFSC premises to update the Shields and Club Executive boards. Our contractor will do this in the next two weeks.

Golf Manager – With the re-opening of the Course, the Golf Manager will return to being in the office two days each week.  These are currently Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Richard Oliver/President