October 2023 Newsletter
President's Report:
We enjoyed good weather for our morning at Centenary park. However the greens were not in good condition owing to coring. We had 50 players tee off in fine sunny weather. It was a shotgun start and a big thank you to our starters, Peter Ross, Peter Garbellini, Ian Richards and Jeff Stevens.
Our game against the Eastern Vets is next Monday 9th October at 8am at Waterford. Should be a great day with lots of prizes and nearest the pins for all grades. Hoping it will be a success, and continue next year.
The end of the year presentation day will be on Friday 8th December at 12 noon at the Keysborough Golf Club. Details will be released in next couple of weeks.
The Teams Event at Benalla was a good result with our teams finishing 7th and 9th. As there were 33 teams, it was overall a good effort.
Remember our challenge next week and then our game at Lang Lang in November.
Your smiling president Harold Hayes
Course review - Sandy Golf Links
Some history (plagiarised from the Royal Melbourne Web site)
When Royal Melbourne Golf Club moved to Black
Rock it disposed of the land it had occupied in Sandringham. Sandringham
City Council bought two paddocks in 1932 where RMGC had four holes and the
Council established a nine-hole course to the design of Vernon Morcom.
This course had a par of 35 and a length of about 2500 metres. When one
played an 18 hole round, the electric tramway in Bluff Road had to be
crossed four times. 
The Sandringham Golf Club was formed in 1937 by Messrs. L.G. McDonald, J.C. Larkins, J.C. Goudie and some of the other regular players of the day. In 1945 the Council bought the land of the present course and built a 9 hole course to Morcom’s design (these 9 holes are now 10 holes from 4 to 9, 11, 13, 14 & 15). Par was 35, length was 2,850 metres and play began in 1946 with entry from Tulip Street and play beginning on what is now the 15th tee. In 1951, holes 3, 4 and 5 were added to make a 12-hole layout of par 46 and about 3,680 metres length. In 1956 the final six holes were added making a par 70 course of 5,620 metres, also to the design of Vernon Morcom. Some changes to holes 13 to 16 were made in the 1990’s.
Through the 1950s till relatively recent times Sandringham Golf Course was known as "The Public Sand-belt Course" and it was literally the only place where the ordinary golfer could get to play in sand-belt like conditions. In the 1950s my father worked across Tulip Street from the course and at lunchtimes walked across, climbed through the loose post and wire fence and found balls by the dozen. Later he had a hole-in-one on the 10th in front of the Saturday crowd of about 100 waiting to hit-off. In those days you put your ball in a ball-holder and waited till it came out to set your tee priority.
Current Course
Recently,CoVID and commercial interests of Royal Melbourne GC saw Royal Melbourne take over the course re-naming it as Sandy Golf Links.
The front 9 had a completely new layout to enable
the first and ninth to be used as a driving range, while the back nine was
largely unchanged. Noticeably the new front nine is laid out with
the widest fairways you can imagine, but do not go off them if you value
your ball. The greens are large and hard to read and there are huge
shallow fairway bunkers on many of the holes.
The current layout was opened in November 2020 with a par of 65 and a length of 4900m.
The current course management philosophy is clearly aimed at encouraging non-experienced golfers to play and the local rules as reproduced below show that.
Local Rules copied from the scorecard
- It's OK to not keep score
- It's OK to play from the shortest tees (There are Purple and Orange available)
- It's OK to give yourself a better lie by rolling the ball around a little
- It's OK to tee the ball up anywhere when you are first learning
- It's OK to only count swings when you make contact with the ball
- It's OK to throw the ball out of a bunker after one try
- It's OK to forget about a ball that may be lost or out of bounds and it's OK to drop a ball where you think it might be.. or where you want it to be
- It's OK to just chip or putt on a hole when you feel like it
- It's OK to pick up in the middle of a hole and enjoy the outdoors and scenery
- It's OK to skip a hole if you need to take a break
- It's OK to play less than 9 or 18 holes and call it a round of golf
- It's OK to to move your ball away from trees, rocks or very hilly lies
- It's OK to hit the same club the entire round, while using a putter on the putting green
- It's OK to play golf in your sneakers. Be comfortable
- It's OK to get enthusiastic. High fives, fist pumps and big smiles are encouraged
- It's OK to talk on the golf course... enjoy a nice conversation or tell a few jokes
- It's OK to bring your kids to the course, whether they are 5 or 35
- It's OK to PLAY GOLF FOR FUN
Conclusion
The course is not suitable for a Vets event. The seating in the dining area is limited and some of the front nine fairways are so wide, it's hard to find your way around!
Laurie
Captains Report:
Results from 'Centenary Park'
Captain Jeff Stevens welcomed members to Centenary Park Golf Club for the Ken Gangell Trophy Stableford event.
Overall winner
Patrick Ryan (19) with 33 points won the Ken Gangell Trophy
Patrick received a $40 House of Golf voucher for this effort.
Grade winners
A Grade: John Marshall (19) 32 points
B Grade: Alan Emery (21) 30 points
C Grade: Marg Holden (31) 29 points
Balls down the line:
31 points Ray Desmond (18)
29 points Lindsay Quennell (25)
28 points Daryl Edwards (23) Peter Garbellini (12) Peter Frost (12) Christopher Tierney (26)
27 points Bruce Keenan (21) George Robinson (22) Ian Richards (32)
NAGA Award:
Winner Roger Selwood won a House of Golf 30 minute lesson !
Nearest the pin
Hole 2 Graham Lee
Hole 8
Hole 13 Bernard De Robillard
Hole 18 Bernard De Robillard
Door prize Winners:
Joe Cirnigliaro celebrated a good day at Centenary Park by winning the door prize of a round for 4 at Centenary Park.
Trevor McGilton will be able to enjoy the wonderful flavours of a Jimmys Jam pack.
Results from 'Waterford Valley'
Captain Jeff Stevens welcomed members to Waterford Valley Golf Club for the Eastern Challenge Trophy Stableford event.
Not yet played
The results from 'Waterford Valley' still not ready
Birthdays for October 2023
Congratulations and best wishes to our members whose birthday falls in October.
Mark Slatter
John Hendrie
Miguel Magana
Brendan Cooney
Tony Villani
Russel Montgomery
Barbara Grant
Some visual ideas
Last month's joke had no images, so this month we go the opposite way and show some random samples of images from the internet.
