News

Spring/Summer 2011 Newsletter

Our main news of the year following all the snow in January February was the appointment of our new professional Groundsman/Greenkeeper John Metcalf who joins us from Cheddington Golf Course which sadly went out of business at the end of last year.

John has been training for three years and continues to do so at Cannington College in Somerset, so his skills and knowledge are bang up to date and he has already proved himself an upbeat, dedicated and friendly team member whose positive approach and cheerful demeanour make him a pleasure to have around the course. He’s also an ex chef in a previous life so Cathy is working hard on getting him to knock up some pastries for the Clubhouse functions!

Over the winter months Eddie Broadbent and more latterly of course, John have been working hard to improve the condition of the greens and since the warmer weather we have seen their hard work start to pay dividends. The Oak Tree Green in particular has really perked up. Over the winter months it was closed for a while to work on improvements to drainage and to re-seed.

The dry start to the year has given us some beautiful days of golf already with gorgeous cherry blossoms and the course continues to look stunning as the Spring flowers give way to the headier blooms of Summer.

Ben and Loretta our husband and wife coaching team continue to run the bi-weekly tournaments for anyone who attends their coaching classes and these are supported in the main by the school children. A fun development though has been the addition of competitions for parent/children teams and these have proved extremely popular. Many members are now taking advantage of the pros expertise so we hope the improved swings, chipping and putting are all leading to reductions in handicap!

The ladies group is especially strong under Loretta’s benevolent supervision. We are giving our current lady champion a run for her title this year with an event to be held on June 9th which looks like it will be well supported. As usual the trophy will be presented at our Annual Summer BBQ to be held on July 10th. A new trophy this year is the Bullpits Short Game Shootout Challenge trophy which will be awarded to the team from any local company that has the lowest score from their Society Day out with us. Two teams competed during the 2010-2011 season, Cullingford Carpets and Sydenhams. They both had lovely weather for their events and gave us very positive feedback regarding their enjoyment of the day. We look forward to welcoming representatives from the companies at the BBQ in the summer for the award of the prize.

Of course we hope that many of you will also be coming along on July 10th to both play and enjoy the presentation ceremony and both Richard and myself very much look forward to welcoming you.

All the best

Cathy and Richard Price