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The World Where We Live

In a week when Crowded House rocked the roof off the Dunedin Town Hall, we pay respect to one of the best bands whose ability to entertain shows no sign of diminishing. Neil Finn and his band of merry men produced a stunning musical display and so in these pages this week, we include as many Crowded House song titles as we can. OK here goes.

The distant sun shone brightly all day long although the strong wind kept temperatures in the reasonably cool range. Unlike recent weeks where we've endured four seasons in one day it wasn't a bad day out although the scores weren't that flash. The tall trees were certainly blowing about and making it a tough day at the golfing office.

The first set of six went to recently returned traveller Derek Todd, Bolty, Eric and Phil of the Ellis variety with 30 points. Closely behind was Duncan's team who would have won except that Duncan played the wrong ball on their first hole; the 10th, thus copping a penalty which made the difference between winning and losing. I asked what happened. Duncan was in the trees on the right and thought he had found his ball. "It's only natural" thought Duncan that the ball was his. Alas it had strayed from the practice range.

In the second set of six the golfing gods repaid the karma and Duncan's team consisting of team mates John Marsh, Nick and Vaughn scored 40 points, enough for the win. "Now we're getting somewhere" they all thought.

Finally, The Nugget, red rag Bruce, future LIV golfer pro shop Mike, and fairway Phil helped themselves to 45 points and won the money. Phil didn't stay too long in the clubhouse after prize giving. With the 6 o clock news not far away, Phil thought to himself " I'd better be home soon."

Our Winners For The Day

Capturing his second Blue Jacket in 2024, here we see happy Hamish collecting the spoils from our winner last week, Tony. Reflecting on a difficult round, Hamish remarked about the wind blowing straight up The Glen. " I don't think I've played into something so strong". 38 points was a good haul on a difficult day with only high stepping Bruce the other player to go better than 36 points and also bag 38 points.

It looks like the travelling did Derek no harm and he managed 3 birdies which was enough for the night out in Balclutha.

Fairway Phil won the raffle and we all sang Happy Birthday to help David Peart celebrate his recent birthday. Thank you for the shout David, hope you had a great day.

And that was another Wednesday at the office. If the wind continues to blow like that, am I only the only one who thought that you can take this weather with you ?

Project Update

The Wagglers project to upgrade the practice area with the installation of an all weather surface is picking up a head of steam. I can report that;

The Board will receive a paper at the meeting on Monday which requests approval to evaluate the material acquired from the Otago Hockey Association by installing a small wooden frame which would lay on the ground, placing rubber underlay on top, then putting some artificial turf on top. We can test out the strength of the material and assess its suitability for use as a golf practice area.

If successful we can install a proper area on either a concrete or crushed rock base and then place the hockey material on top. If unsuccessful we can then revert back to the plan to purchase proper golfing tee mats.

Today we have picked up a sizeable amount of free artificial turf from the Hockey Association.

Here you can see the hockey pitch being unrolled by the orange Kubota machine. Notice though that the rubber underlay is more or less left behind. So the hockey turf came up with the rubber underlay still on the ground.

We picked up 4 rolls of the artificial turf which measure approximately 27 metres x 1.5 metres which are now at the golf club behind the clubhouse.

Then the really good guy Andy at the Hockey Association said there was some rubber underlay which might be recoverable using a scraper and a bit of local muscle. So Craig and I went back later and recovered several rolls of rubber underlay.

So it's been a successful morning. At the club we now have the 4 rolls of artificial turf and plenty of intact rubber underlay. But the icing of the cake came just as we were loading the rubber onto the trailer. What looked like 3 rolls of brand new artificial turf complete with intact rubber underlay were being moved around the marshalling compound. "What's happening to those ?" enquired Craig. "Throwing them away Mate" was the reply. "Chuck 'em on the back of the trailer" said Craig hastily.

So there we have it. Assuming the Board gives us the nod on Monday, we'll construct the trial platform. Shortly after we'll start to think about the best way to use what we have and move into phase B with a decent area for an upgraded practice area.