Welcome to the ozgolf.net forums.
View RSS Feed

My Golfing Passion...

Kingston SE Summer Open 2011

Rate this Entry
19/12/11 Monday. Enjoyed the round at Kingston SE in the Summer Open event. Four golfers from the Robe club went on the day which could have been an extreme set of weather conditions given the skies and the forecast. The rain held off, was a humid trek around the course and the northerly wind was very different to the usual breeze. After the hit on Wednesday travelling through to Adelaide the course layout was familiar in my mind and I started out well with a 42 off the stick on the front nine. a couple of bad putts were the main culprits together with one bad drive and a poor chip on the 195m par three hole that cost me a better result.

Then on the back nine I destroyed the round on the 10th, 11th and twelfth holes with atrocious tee shots. The third time in the past four rounds I have done this on the same holes at three different courses. At Kingston I hung in there and scrambled home with an 89 gross (47 on back nine) and a nett 77. Three double bogies at the start of the back nine took the challenge out of my round being a good one. On Sunday I fronted up at the home track after helping with the Junior Coaching clinic in the morning. A wasted round with a DNF result for me, nothing left in the tank after the front nine, even though I had 16 Stableford points, only a wipe on the 9th being at fault preventing better. It was a duffed tee shot that caused that also. Then wiping 10,11 and 12 again! this time though I tuned out any attempt at getting a score and just concentrated on what was causing this collapse.

Finished the round walking and having the odd hit with the group and finally twigged the fault. Brain fade is not the answer, for some reason after 9 holes of doing it right o the tee block all of a sudden,I decide to stop doing the low slow take away. This was taught by a professional coach to stop the slice. After 2 years of doing this for some reason this is dropped during the middle of rounds and the ensuing disasters of the past four weeks result.
Perhaps having gorged myself on golf over this period after the layoff is part of the mental cause, so it is time out for a few days. A Xmas break will do me just fine let the body and brain recharge and get on top of the workload that allows me to play golf as well. Thankyou for your time and attention, “Hit ‘em straight All”
=================
19/12/11 We have started a series of FREE 1 hour Junior Golf Clinics on the Sundays of School Holidays in January. This is an evolution of 3 years of unrelated Junior Golf events at the club in that there was no set plan. The beginning was a "come and try golf day" each year on a long weekend also the running of a Junior Golf Tournament in a season. Each of these had varying success in getting kids playing. Come and Try Golf first was a winner every time with 12-20 kids having a hit.

The Tournaments were harder as they clash with other regional and state events and being country based that makes it difficult by location alone. That said in 2011 two juniors came from the SA Riverland to the Limestone coast to play. A long trip to play golf but country golfers are used to that.

This was done purely as a must do activity initiated by the club captain, what it did was give the club a base to develop more from. Next came the regional Golf SE school coaching clinics which another golfer has volunteered to do after getting involved at his home club and seeing the number of juniors who do want to play golf coming out on the course. Hence we have the Primary School students doing golf activities at the school and then have a class trip to the course to do the same activities on a golf course plus play a few modified holes.

Hence at our club which has 2-4 junior golfers who have a hit with parents and no junior golf competition at the club we were aware that there was an interest in golf among the juniors in the town and region. The next step was for another club member to see this interest and see the "market" which was there. Then put the information to another member (Club Captain) who then contacted the regional golf assoc. who supplied a junior golfing kit. Then two members who are parents volunteered to help out and a letter was sent to the local school before the end of year and on Sunday we have 10 kids turn up for an hour on a Sunday morning to hit golf balls for fun. Following the Easy golf exercises supplied with the kit
starting inside with putting and the rubber balls. Then outside with the 7 irons, the kids had fun several were very good at basic golf skills in fact.

The result is that by the end of January when school returns from 1 hour on Sundays I expect the club to have a core of 10 at least junior golfers who we can organise a comp for when before there was nothing. It was from a combination of Golf Assoc. support, club committee support and members doing things that they are good at, besides playing golf that is. IE Organisation, Networking, Coaching, Marketing, Promotion.

It did not happen overnight, it was three years in the making from a disparate group of individuals who all "Did Stuff" off their own back in club activity. The key word is <strong>"activity"</strong> it is a task that for volunteers relies upon good spirit and generosity as well as Association support. Volunteers are not employees, they do not have to do anything unless they want too. There is a "market" for want of a better word, out there for junior golf. All of the statistics, analysis, data correlation is good reading and valuable knowledge. Like all information it does nothing except feed minds and sit there being available. For clubs it has nothing to do with a money focus, that is for businesses. By encouraging the Junior Golf activity the flow on of new golfers, new members all can benefit the club professional and the general club environment. Importantly it has given the club a future. We want to develop and encourage golf, that is in our club constitution.

Any club can start to do it as well. All you have to do is stand up and say "I will do this..."
Categories
Uncategorized

Comments

Back to top