Women’s Opening Day

Opening Day Women’s 2023 Winter Season

The last day of Summer produced perfect conditions for the Womens Opening Day of the 2023 Winter season. Eighty Eight women competed in a shotgun 4BBB Stableford competition over 11 holes. This format provided the competitors the opportunity to play with new members and co-players that they may not have played with for some time. The general consensus was that it was a fun and sociable morning. The scores were reflective of the perfect conditions and the mixture of seasoned players with higher handicappers, the outright winners of Cathy Darling, Carmel Fairweather, Ann Colmer and Trish Johnston scoring 39 points – an average of 3.54 points per hole! 

The camaraderie continued inside with a welcome drink and light lunch on tables decorated with beautiful floral centrepieces sourced directly from the course. Thanks go to Chris Croucher and Ros Osborne for their creative flair both upstairs and in the locker room and to the back and front of house for the hospitality afforded to us all, as well as Golf Ops who do so much to facilitate the smooth running of these events. Good luck and happy hitting in 2023.Jo Ricourt Womens sub committee captain 

Opening Day 2023 Women’s Captain’s Remarks

Hello everyone and welcome to the 2023 winter season. Fabulous to see everyone out here and playing in a format that mixes up the field and gives everyone a chance to play with our new members and members that they haven’t had a chance to play with before.

We have a jampacked season ahead and we will be having our own version of mad March here at Glenelg.

The season kicks off with the Club Championship and as Fiona discussed at the Annual Meeting last year the format has changed to comply with Golf Australia’s inclusivity conditions and therein allow us to become the first SA club to sign the Women in Golf Charter.

Week one of the qualifying commences on Saturday the 11^th or Tues the 14^th of March  with the second week of qualifying on the 18^th or 21^st . You just need to nominate on the day of play. After much negotiation with Golf Australia we have been able to secure one round of match play semi-finals for the top 4 qualifiers in each grade to be held on Sunday the 26^th and then the C Grade plate final on Friday the 31^st and the Graded Championships on Sunday the 2^nd.

We would like to see as many of you out at the final supporting your friends and team mates and watching some elite level golf and perhaps some not so elite shots under pressure.

I’m confident that the new format will reveal our Champion golfer in each grade division.

The Veterans trophy for over 60s will run concurrently with the qualifying Tues rounds with the best nett aggregate receiving the trophy. There are also prizes for the best gross and the runner up nett.

The Captains trophy qualifying will also be held on Tues the 21^st with the 16 top nett qualifiers going on to compete in this handicap matchplay event throughout the year. I urge everyone no matter the handicap to enter in this event . It’s a great opportunity to take on a much lower handicapper and win and you never know you might secure the bragging rights of defeating a club champion.

We have 2 teams from Glenelg competing in the Mary Cudmore Bowl at Naracoorte next week on the Wednesday and Thursday and due to a late injury, we have a vacancy for anyone who is interested with ideally a handicap Glenelg 30 or below. If you are interested, please come and see me it’s such a fun event and kicks off with a cocktail party on the Tues night.

We also have a team of 4 heading over to Mornington to play in The National Women’s Invitational at Cape Schank. So good luck everyone -drive safely on and off the course!

The annual Grange v Glenelg Foursomes has been scheduled for Thursday the 30^th of March. Entries are now open on the booking sheet -you enter as individuals with no handicap limit and then we pick a team of 10 pairs. It will be a great opportunity to play at Grange just prior to LIV rolling into town so the course should be in pristine condition. The trophy is currently residing downstairs and ill be driving it over on the day and I’m sure I can book it in for a return trip.

Our other early interclub competition the Bronze Challenge against Royal will be played on Monday April 3^rd here at Glenelg. Bookings are also open online and we are fielding a team of 9 plus reserves with a handicap range of GA 15 to 25. This is a matchplay event. Now Fiona nearly had to down trousers last year, but we have the home ground advantage and our new club uniform to rival Royals so I’m sure we are going to be the winners on all fronts!

Our other interclub the Pauline Sanderson Bowl for C Grade will be played later in the year in July.

We also have two Swap Days planned with Royal and Grange, let’s hope the weather is better in 2023 my shoes are still drying out after what was the worst day of the year at Royal but I urge everyone to get out there so that we can secure these days going forward.

Our Statewide events will commence with the Laurel Wreath Matchplay qualifying round being played on April the 4^th with top 16 or 32 going through number dependent. Further rounds need to be organised individually with cut off dates being supplied on the drawer in the locker room. Shylie Rymill and International Bowl will both commence in May. A portion of the participation fee for these State-wide events across Australia will go towards funding girls participation in golf through the Junior Girls scholarship programme.

Pennant season commences April 30^th Glenelg women teams will include A1 Sanderson, A2 Pike, and A3 as well as a Cleek team. Emails have gone out to eligible players in the A teams and Cleek will follow shortly. We have our Mandatory pennant meeting this Thursday at 6pm with A1 and 2 training on Thursday pm and A3s will train on Tuesdays at 1pm. We have a great squad with some real depth, and I think this year could be our penultimate.

I would like to thank the managers in advance who have offered their time and wisdom – Ruth Martin, Fiona Eblen, Sue Touhy, Anna Standish and Annette Reinerts and Chery Franzi for the Cleek team.

Well if that’s still not enough golf for you there are numerous Open Days,metropolitan and regional that you can enter. These are always a lot of fun and a great way of playing other courses with friends from other teams. They always offer great value and include lunch and numerous prizes.

South Lakes will be hosting there annual May week from the 9^th to the 12^th with entries already open and Country week is planned for the week commencing 25^th of July held in Ardrossan,Clare,Crystal Brook and MtGambier dependent on your handicap .

If that is still not enough golf for you the OOM Senior Womens series has commenced but you can join at any stage these events are open to women 50 and above with handicaps less than 36. Just check downstairs in the locker room and on the Golf Australia page.

I urge everyone to familiarise themselves with the locker room notice board and the women’s golf news section of the Glenelg GC web page. We are going to be utilising this throughout the year to keep you up to date with news, events and some history of the trophies you are competing for. I have published a women’s golf calendar on this page and although there were a couple of changes early in the season, I think it’s an accurate summary of what we have in store for the year.

We currently have 309 female members at Glenelg including 21 on the waitlist and a new crop of Try golfers out there this week.  I’d just like to reinforce the wonderful club culture we have here and to urge all of us to model this by continuing to promote and perform  course care: filling divots and repairing pitch marks and by keeping the pace of play moving – keep up with the group ahead ,park your buggies appropriately, split up if necessary and if pace is truly concerning call the pro shop who will come out and assist. Play by the rules -the integrity of the game and fair play relies on this and to facilitate this we are going to be running some workshops soon, for all players who need to brush up or improve their knowledge.

But most of all have fun out there enjoy this pristine environment and be grateful for the opportunity to play this terribly frustrating game.

Results.

So, while you have been out there playing a lot of social golf over summer our own juniors have been competing in the Vardon series here in SA. Current standings in the Junior OOM are; Bec Hardy 6^th, Zoe Manton 7^th, Maiya Jakupec 20^th and Grace Ferrier Tied for 36^th . The future is looking bright – not only are these girls the real deal on the course they are just lovely well-rounded individuals off the course as well. If you get a chance play a round of golf with them – its inspirational.

We have some summer prizes to award today as well.

Summer eclectic.

Tues A Grade Jill Hodge

Tues B Grade Sandy Dolman

Tues C Grade Barb McCardle

Saturday Summer Eclectic Gross Winner Jill Hodge

Saturday Summer Eclectic Nett Winner Zoe Manton

NTPs

A Grade Kay Nyland

B Grade Lyn Gould

C Grade Julie Moir

And lastly what you have all being waiting for the Comp Of the Day

Runners up are Jo Ricourt, Fiona Weir, Suzy Bosley, Jackie Burke with 36 points.

Winning team is Cathy Darling, Carmel Fairweather, Ann Colmar, Trish Johnston on 39 points

And finally thank you all for listening lots to get through the Winter Conditions have been posted on the board downstairs and the new Turkey Gobbler sheet is up and ready to go.

Jo Ricourt