Stroke indices

Now the summer competitions are over, it's interesting to look at the difficulties of each hole compared to the current stroke indices. The table below shows for the last season the current stroke index, the "scratch" index - ie without taking account of handicap - and the index after taking account of player's handicaps.

Most were in line; the anomaly of 11 & 12 is well known, but it's interesting that the 17th was the easiest hole.

History repeating (2)

We are fortunate to have a complete set of minutes from the time the club was formed. We've decided that the earlier ones at least would be stored in better conditions and more safely at the County Archives at Woodhorn instead of with us; we will keep both a copy and the copyright. The team at Woodhorn were grateful, not least because they still remembered all the work Gordon McKeag had done there whilst researching the Centenary history.

It was interesting to have a quick flick through the minutes before leaving them at Woodhorn: many of the issues we talk about now were talked about many times in the past – not just the obvious things, like work on the clubhouse or visitor income, but also the mundane. In 1905, players climbing into neighbouring fields to collect balls were a problem. In the 1960s, the committee was asking why the greens had become larger. Again in 1905, the committee decided to have a maximum handicap of 18 in competitions.

Nothing new under the sun was obviously also George’s thinking as the Green committee walked the course to agree winter work and think about some longer term issues (actually, we drove around in buggies, much to the interest of the few visiting players we kept disturbing and who wondered what we were doing).

There’s certainly not much wrong with the course, apart perhaps from the 6^th which most good players seem to think is not particularly fair. Reducing the blindness of some of the holes by improving the tees would make the course more enjoyable particularly for visitors but as we walked through dunes, bracken and brambles to the sound of George telling us we were walking in the footsteps of previous green committee it became clear that there’s a good reason the tees are where they are. However, over time we will try to elevate some of them and next year we are going to try putting the competition tees for the 14^th and 6^th in different places: the 14^th, by the 9^th tee, and the 6^th, by the yellow tee. If that is better we'll consider a permanent change, if not we won't.

The winter work will focus on improving the paths particularly by the 8^th (although we will leave the first tee area until the clubhouse work is completed); improving the drainage especially on the 12^th and 7^th; improving the signage for walkers; controlling the gorse (although not as radically as last year) and promoting heather by the 9^th. The work on the greens and the rough cutting will happen after our last open competition in October. We will also work on the collapsed walls at the 17^th and 14^th. That could cost a lot so we’ll have to think carefully about the scale of any repair.