News Archive

Summary from the 12 September Golf Club Committee meeting…..

• Discussions with Murray – These  are now concluded. Members should read the post on the Website  (posted PM on 23 Sept) to familarise themselves with agreede arrangements for prizes.  
• Membership fees for 2020 – The Golf Club and AFSC have finalised the 2020 fees and letters have gone to members. Increases are moderate ($50 for a full member and pro-rata for the other categories) and a $20 increase to the water level. 
• AFSC Point of Sale terminal – The Point of Sale terminal is now operating with members able to transfer their club winning to the Ainslie Club card within 30 days of winning a prize. Read more about this in the post on prizes.
• Australian Boys Amateur Championships –  The club will be one of the Canberra host clubs for this event in April of 2020.  It is recognition for the quality of our course and management of past events at the club. 
• New Water Bubbler – Installation is complete. The bubbler is located in the area near the 1st and 14th  tee boxes and will assist in meeting our obligations under the Club’s Heat Policy.
• Course maintenance  – Sanding of the fairways is now complete.  Additional work to be done over the coming months including Greens renovations after the Club Championships.
• Objects and Rules – A revision of the Club’s Objects and Rules s progressing with a final draft to be considered by the Board of the AFSC at an upcoming Board meeting.  The revised document will then be made available to Golf Club members for review and comment before ratification at an Extraordinary General meeting in October.  Key changes are:
  • Minor changes to first couple of pages to the document to update the terminology used  throughout the documents
  • Capturing the processes we now use for new members and more accurately titling the membership categories and core entitlements for each of these .
  • Revisions to the process of voting for new Committee Office Bearers and Members.  In the past this was very manual and paper based .  We have now written into the document the procedures for electronic voting and a slightly refined process for nominating for the Committee.  Nominating for the Committee is still in writing and with a proposer and seconder. 
  • Better formatting the document and make it easier to read  and understand.
• Greens’ Staff – CEO AFSC has given permission for an Apprentice to be employed. This will help Shane and the team with the maintenance of the course.
• Lifestyle membership – New arrangements for Flex 20 (now Lifestyle) for the 2020 golfing year. Information provided to members in recent Splash article on the new arrangements.   
• AGM is scheduled for 23 November.  Nominations for the Committee will soon be called for, as is required in the Objects and Rules.

• Guidance Statements – A number of Guidance Statements have had minor changes made.  Guidance statements are available on the website and members should review these. Latest one to be adjusted is Reciprocal Club and Gust Playing Rights.

Richard Oliver/President

Fairway renovations

With the success of the recent fairway renovations in Autumn, myself and the greens committee decided to continue with the program. It is important to bear in mind the fairways had not been subjected to major renovations for over 10 years.  The timing of this recent renovation has been questioned, and I would like to explain the decision.

The timing is directly related to what we plan to do in October/November of this year as part of the broader fairway management strategy.  Due to the high amount of summer grass and paspalum last year, we are implementing a preventive herbicide regime which will hopefully keep the fairways free from summer grass, and eliminate seed heads on any paspalum for over 6 months.  We already had bare patches on the fairways due to the summer grass from last year, so it was deemed necessary that the fairways be topdressed, reseeded and fertilised.  The seed that we are spreading in the fairways this week would be killed by any chemicals used to control the summer grass and paspalum if it has not had at least 6 weeks growing time.  Furthermore, we had to wait to top-dress and seed the fairways until the ground temperature began to increase. We were very lucky to have had perfect days for about a week, although a couple of the frosts were a concern. What this all means is that there was a very small window of time to try and get the fairways seeded ahead of chemicals going out. We made a decision 3 months ago to top-dress and seed this week to potentially take advantage of the conditions to deliver healthier fairways this summer and beyond.

There are areas that have a lot of sand, which the greenkeeping staff have been working feverishly to thin out.  Shane is turning on the fairway irrigation, and with a bit of rain on the way we are hoping that the sand will wash into the scarified areas and cores.

We are confident that the fairways will be better than ever in the not too distant future, but please remember that golf course management is a year-long project and a number of renovation projects must happen in Spring, unfortunately at the same time as our Open, but necessary for the long term health and presentation of the course.

Mark Hynes

Greens Committee

Fairway renovations

With the success of the recent fairway renovations in Autumn, myself and the greens committee decided to continue with the program. It is important to bear in mind the fairways had not been subjected to major renovations for over 10 years.  The timing of this recent renovation has been questioned, and I would like to explain the decision.

The timing is directly related to what we plan to do in October/November of this year as part of the broader fairway management strategy.  Due to the high amount of summer grass and paspalum last year, we are implementing a preventive herbicide regime which will hopefully keep the fairways free from summer grass, and eliminate seed heads on any paspalum for over 6 months.  We already had bare patches on the fairways due to the summer grass from last year, so it was deemed necessary that the fairways be topdressed, reseeded and fertilised.  The seed that we are spreading in the fairways this week would be killed by any chemicals used to control the summer grass and paspalum if it has not had at least 6 weeks growing time.  Furthermore, we had to wait to top-dress and seed the fairways until the ground temperature began to increase. We were very lucky to have had perfect days for about a week, although a couple of the frosts were a concern. What this all means is that there was a very small window of time to try and get the fairways seeded ahead of chemicals going out. We made a decision 3 months ago to top-dress and seed this week to potentially take advantage of the conditions to deliver healthier fairways this summer and beyond.

There are areas that have a lot of sand, which the greenkeeping staff have been working feverishly to thin out.  Shane is turning on the fairway irrigation, and with a bit of rain on the way we are hoping that the sand will wash into the scarified areas and cores.

We are confident that the fairways will be better than ever in the not too distant future, but please remember that golf course management is a year-long project and a number of renovation projects must happen in Spring, unfortunately at the same time as our Open, but necessary for the long term health and presentation of the course.

Mark Hynes

Greens Committee

2019 Mixed Foursomes Championship

Congratulations to the winners of the 2019 Mixed Foursomes Championships:

• Gross Winners – Jenny Whittaker and Jeff Le-Fevre
• Nett Winners – Joanne Kim and David Wicks
• Gross Runners-up – Amanda McLoughlin and Ross McLoughlin
• Nett Runners-up – Fiona Wicks and Sam Wicks

The event was played in great spirit over the last two Sundays and it was great to see the fun and friendship continue in the spike bar after both rounds.

A big thanks to all that took part in the event this year.

Splash September 2019

SPLASH-Sept 2019