After the fog lifted an excellent days golf for the 33 seniors who took to the fairways.

Really good to greet our second new member of the week Rod Bools who has joined us from Burford, more of Rod later and good to welcome back Jim Postles after some time away.

It was a tale of two captains, the former Captain winning the medal by some margin, 4 shots and the new Captain winning the longest drive on the 18th, thank you Glyn for the wine

The results were;

Division 1

Kevin Timms 70
Malcolm Saunders 74
Rod Bools 74

Division 2
John Watt 77
Barry Lund 79
Brian Rollerson 80

There have been a couple questions,/comments, from some members, which I will address here

1. Roll Up Sign Up Sheets or drawing cards
A couple of members directly asked me to introduce drawing the cards to allocate playing partners for some roll ups. I therefore implemented this system on Tuesday
The feed back I received was all positive, people enjoyed mixing together before teeing off and having the opportunity to play with people they do not normally play with
I therefore proposed to run both systems, alternating between them for the roll ups, until there is a ground swell of opinion one way or any other

2. Why are we teeing off at 8.30.
A number of members, questioned why the greens were not being wiped before out first groups went out. Kevin and I raised this with the club. The best solution was for us to delay the tee time until 8.30, to allow the green staff time to get the first greens prepared.
In addition,the sunrise time continue to be later during November and it will not be suitable to play at 8.00 am, in the near future nor during December, January and February

This has been agreed with the club, so if anyone wants to tee off earlier, they will need to go to reception to book their tee time. If we are running a roll up with the start sorted by drawing cards, anyone teeing prior to the drawing of cards will not be entered into the competitions.

3. Buggies
I know some people are concerned about the Buggies being withdrawn from service for the winter. I spoke with Martin Burbanks regarding this. He advised that because the ground is still relatively hard there are no plans to withdraw the buggies in the near future. There are 2 buggies currently available and another coming back into commission soon.
Apparently buggies will not be bookable, it is a first come first served system. It might make sense for those who need a buggy to play together, if that is the case you can organise yourselves for the Roll Ups and let me know for the sign up matches
At the AGM with Tracy and James from the club, they were advised that in some instances the buggies were not properly prepared, for instances not wiped dry. They have agreed that this was not acceptable and that this would be changed.
Therefore if the buggies are not prepared let me and the club know


4. Suggestions
Ron Deacon came up with a great suggestion, why don't the club have grating on the ground level for the cleaning of the trolleys. Currently when cleaning the trolley you still pick up grass when leaving the area. Ron and I mentioned this to Martin Burbanks who thought it was a good idea. Not sure whether this will lead to a change, but who knows

Anyone else with any ideas let me know

It was a little bit wet today, but not too bad.

I don't know what the less intrepid among us will be like when the winds pick up and there is driving rain , or frosty mornings!!

Anyhow 18 brave souls ventured  out and as mentioned, once out there it was ok for golf with the course playing well.

I would like to welcome Mike (his name is not John, Doug!) Twyman, to the seniors section. Mike has been with Witney Lakes a number of years, but has just seen the light and is looking to join in with us. Mike can't be with us for the next week or so, but has said he will return. Brian of course took the opportunity of extracting the fees from him immediately

I had the good fortune of seeing Ron Deacon produce a masterclass of using his handicap to full advantage, however he will need to up hi game as HowDidIDo has just cut him from 28 to 26.4

As only 18 participants there is just one divison

The winners were;

Ron Deacon 37 points
Doug Keen 33 points on countback
Mike Twyman 33 points

Good Afternoon

On tomorrow's Stableford 7th November I am looking to run a 2's competition on all of the holes.
Entry will be £2 and any player(s) scoring a Gross 2 will win a share of the pot, with a small amount going to the charity and a small amount to the Seniors Section, for use on Away Days, food at the Monthly Prize Giving etc

So if you want to participate bring your £1 and £2 coins, nor old £1 coins please

If you are not in you can't win it!!

We will see how it goes and will run it more often say monthly if there is an appetite for it

Hi all,

Some general stuff

Roll up Stableford Tuesday 7th November
A number of people have asked me to use the system of drawing cards to make up the pairings for some of the Roll Ups.
Therefore I will try this method on 7th November.
I will look to do the draw in the Sports Bar at 8.10 to 8.15 for the first groups when we have circa 12 players cards.

November Monthly Medal
The Start Times for the Monthly Medal on 9th November are now posted on the Tee Times Tab, and will be posted on the notice board on Tuesday

U-Boat KO Pairs
The entries for this competition will close next Thursday 9th November, when the draw will be made.
If you want to win this highly original prestigious trophy, make sure your name is on the sheet

Charity Hole 13th - Net Par or better and Bunkers - 50p
There have been some howls of displeasure on my choice of the Captains Charity hole.
Being a fair man I will look to change this from 1st January 2018.
However please remember this is for charity, the idea is that money does get collected

Captain's Contact Details

If anyone wants to contact me here are my details

e-mail: rod@jtiuk.com
Mobile: 07721420100
Home: 01993778145

.

Good Evening Golfers,

It was a lovely crisp morning at the Lakes for our first 8.30 Tee Off of the autumn.

Today's competition was an alternating Red, Yellow White Tee Off, a number of people said they enjoyed the format, so we will stage another one soon, but maybe alternating the order of the Tees.

I am slightly embarrassed to announce myself as the overall winner today, but expect I will just have to get over it 

The winners were as follows

Division 1
1st Rod Rapley 41 points
2nd Doug Keen 36 points on CB
3rd Mike Smith 36 points 

Division 2 
1st Eric Wearing 39 points
2nd Pat Hiles 37 points on CB
3rd John Robinson 37 points


A pretty good day for John, as he also won the bottle of Red for the closest to the pin in two on the 16th hole, donated by myself

Glyn Rees has kindly offered to provide a bottle of Wine for the longest drive on the 18th for the Monthly Medal on the 9th November.

Any other offers of a prize,will be gratefully received and you can choose the hole and the mechanics

Good Morning from your old mate the Ex Captain

Sorry I didn't post yesterday's results what with all the work with prizes and momentos and chip portion sizes (if you weren't involved don't ask ) I forgot who the winners were. This morning from memory I think it was Cliff Smith and Brian Rollerson beating Dave Williams and Cliff Surman on count back both with 43 points.

If I'm wrong I'm sure James will sort it out, I definitely need a holiday.
So over and out and thanks for all the fun