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Brad Matthews
CPGA Director of Golf
Have Your Say: Do you have a suggestion? Would you like something posted on the bulletin board
or discussed on Brad’s Blog? Email your message to: brad@whistlebear.ca
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That’s It, That’s All Event - Wednesday, November 11th Wow I can’t believe I have missed an entire month on the blog! Well it has been a bit crazy. The Tombstone was a great hit! We have one event left and it the event we put the pins in all the toughest places on the entire golf course. New for this year we are going to ask you what you think the toughest spots are so we can make it even tougher than last year! We actually had a group of 4 players 6 putt last year, that’s right 24 putts without going in! Wow - good thing the greens are slower or they will still be out there! Signups start tomorrow. And don’t forget the course closes on November 12th. September 29, 2009 Membership Board We have gathered three people to start working on a membership board(s)? They are putting together some ideas on what the board would do. We will then get together with management and owners and make sure we are all on the same page before going forward. They will look into how the board will be elected, what spin off boards that may be necessary, how many on the board and so on.Once more information is available we will send it out by email.I think everyone is looking forward to this! September 8, 2009 Handicap Holes from Club Championships Here are the results hole ratings from Club Championship. I have started with the 10th hole and then went to a hole on the front nine. So if we went only by the stroke average to par this is how our handicap holes would like next season - the toughest holes being listed first:Ladies 10, 9, 18, 1, 16, 2, 12, 5, 11, 7, 3, 6, 17, 13, 15, 4, 14, 8 Men 10, 1, 18, 2, 16, 4, 17, 6, 14, 3, 13, 5, 11, 9, 15, 7, 12, 8 September 3, 2009 Is It Time For a Membership Board? In recent weeks I have had some conversations with some members about having a membership board. This might be a place the members can bring up to their own board about ideas? Suggestions? I am adding this on my blog to see what other feedback we might get in doing so? If we do go ahead I believe we should ask three members to come forward and start looking into how we would start/confirm members onto the board and what they believe the board would look after. So if you have any ideas feel free to contact me at any time. In the meantime let’s kick this idea around and see where we can go!
August 10, 2009 We hosted our Husband & Wife, Junior and Senior Club Championships this past weekend. Congratulations to all our Champions: Husband & Wife Club Champions – Denise & Dave Popowich Junior Girls Club Champion (18 and under) – Kirsten Degutis Bantam Club Champion (13 and under) – Keaton Jones Juvenile Club Champion (14-16) – Dylan Hamara Junior Club Champion (17 & 18) – Sterling Emery Senior Ladies Club Champion – Nanette Jozwiak Senior Mens Club Champion – Blane Hamilton
How did we come up with the handicap holes and the order in which they are rated? This was calculated from the scoring from the Nationwide Tour.The average strokes taken on each hole in 2005.We will be re rating them this year as we have some more date that we received when the Junior Boys where here. The List from the Junior Boys had the holes rated as follows starting with the Toughest to par. 1 toughest 17 10 16 2 18 11 4 3 1 12 11 4 14 13 6 5 10 14 15 6 3 15 2 7 13 16 8 8 7 17 9 9 5 18 12 We will also get a read from our scoring system this year on Club Championship so we can also add in our averages from Club C both Male and Female.Great Question and I hope this clears up why our holes are rated they way they are! July 21, 2009 Club Championship Sign up We have all our Club championship signups know in the proshop. Dates are as follows: Husband and Wife Club Championship – Friday August 7th 5 pm shotgun Senior Men’s and Senior Ladies – Saturday August 8th Morning Split tee of number 1 Championship Flight Club Championship – which is open to any player 5.0 index or better is a 3 day event this year.Friday -Sunday August 21-23.If a player would like to withdraw from the own flight and play in this championship they may do so. Club Championship – Ladies 2 Flights and Men’s 4 Flights is a two day event. Split tees both days and Sunday tee times will all be done by score.Saturday and Sunday August 22-23. July 7, 2009 Honour alive and well in Junior Golf Sometimes young people get a bad rap, so I want to give you a great golf story that happened here at the Bear yesterday. We had a competitor that was the 1st alternate to get in the Ontario Junior.The only way he would get into the tournament was if someone withdrew or didn’t show up.Yesterday afternoon everyone had checked in.There he was sitting at the first tee waiting for this chance and someone was late, so it looked as if he was going to get the opportunity to play.Here was his opportunity to play, possibly maybe even make the cut, and maybe even have a chance to qualify to play in the Canadian Junior?The person that was late was actually from his own club.Knowing that he had seen him somewhere earlier, instead of turning a cold shoulder to him, he left the first tee to run to the parking lot and putting green to find him.Because of this young man, this player showed up to the first tee with three seconds to go or he would have been disqualified.So all in all he saved his club mate from being disqualified. I really love that we have great honour in this game and it is alive and well in junior golf. June 8, 2009 Creating Great Memories What a great day we had on Saturday, this was the very first time that I had the opportunity to play with my daughter Rachel, and she had been in some golf camps with Amy in previous summers but had never played.When I did ask her to play she wasn’t too excited about it, so I told her we would be the fill in for the tournament if the numbers didn’t even out.So we came and had breakfast, hit some putts and sure enough Chris needed an extra team to play.So off we went. Well she must have hit at least 10 shots over 100 yards and loved the Day, Played with Shawn and Brett Kennedy and Rachel had a great time. I have played a lot of golf in the last 30 years and I must tell you it was one of my proudest moments watching and teaching my daughter this great game.Just the 2 of us for 8 hours, I can’t recall ever having that much time together.Her Smiles said it all!For those of you who didn’t get to play you must plan to play in this event next year. Next season we will call this Family Day. We will also include Fishing as well (for those who might not want to play golf or for those who would like to do both.) Always nice to see the future of Whistle Bear playing at such a young age. Thank you to all the played and I hope your experience was a great as mine! June 5, 2009 What’s New in the Golf Shop? For those of you who haven’t heard, we’ve made a recent addition to our golf course – The Laser Link Distance System. Many of you have probably seen this System in use at other Great Golf Courses.This system if designed specifically for the game of golf, you won’t believe how easy and fast it is to use.All of our Flagsticks have been equipped with the patented Laser Link Reflector, and the handheld rangefinders are available in the proshop. If you already own a GPS system you will also benefit as the Reflector on the flags will also really help you find the flag a lot faster. May 21, 2009 Congratulations to our Hole in One’s ... and is it time for Hole In One Insurance? Ithought I should update a couple of aces our members have had this year already! First we had Brad Grassing on #17 Friday, April 17th. Then Mike Abbott had one on #5 Wednesday, May 20th We have discussed in the past that we should maybe look into hole in one insurance for our members. It would work like this: A lot of private clubs have this instituted and I really think we should as well. If anyone has any objections to this let me know as we should do this soon. Bunkers, Bunkers, Bunkers! While we have noticed an improvement in our bunkers this season, we do however still have some members that do not rake after being in them. We are on the lookout for all players not using rakes and there will be some form of punishment. We will be looking at suspension for a couple of weeks, but we need this to stop. With Matchplays just getting ready to start, we need to ensure the course is in playing condition every day. April 30, 2009 What to do with your broken tees? We have had a number of questions on what do with the broken tees. We ask that you throw them into the rough. We cut the rough around tees with rotary blade mowers and they will get chopped up and will compost over time. We have received a lot of good feedback about the Hole Assignments and hope this will continue. The new Divot mix has gone over great as well. Keep up the good work. If the Divot Bottles continue to be emptied we will look into a refill program thru 9 or even out at the quarter turn. Thank you to all of you who have been doing all you can. We hope everyone playing continues to do the great work in keeping our course in Excellent Condition. April 22, 2009 Beat The Pro Contest (though some will call it Beat The Chump!) Starting Date – Opening Day - Winners Shootout – August 21, 2009 Every member will have the chance to play against a member of the Whistle Bear Professional Staff (Brad Matthews, Chris Wehrle, Adam Ferraro, Amy Orendi) at anytime during the given period.The format will be 18 hole match play, all amateurs will receive 75% of their handicap.You can play any pro as many times as you wish until you win.Once you have won and qualified for the shootout you cannot play again. The cost will be $5 to play. All of the winners will compete in a 100 yard closest to the pin contest (Hole #18) on the evening of Friday, August 21, 2009. The 3 closest to the pin winners will receive Proshop credits that will be based on the number of participants. So get your threesome together or even if it's only you and book a game with one of us. And remember ... the name of the game is BEAT the Pro ... not TIE the Pro! April 13, 2009 What the heck is Equitable Stroke Control? Note: In other countries, the system of ESC may be different than the RCGA system, (i.e., USGA system). When a score is made under a system of ESC different to the RCGA ESC system, that score must be adjusted to the RCGA ESC system before it is entered as an adjusted score under the RCGA Handicap System. A Handicap Factor determined from scores to which ESC has not been applied may not be termed an RCGA Handicap Factor. Equitable Stroke Control:
March 26, 2009 Range will be opened ½ hour before each tee time, for members and guests. March 23. 2009 Maintenance Upgrades March 9, 2009 Here is another question we asked our software company Jencess regarding scores that you see from your computer. We didn’t know why so many of you had a difficult time with the nine hole scores. Apparently you can only see the 9 hole score waiting from our base in computer that was downstairs last season. 1. Online handicapping does not show 9 hole score? We get a lot of calls cause the put it in twice then, on our system here does show it? February 16, 2009 MEMBER HOLE ASSIGNMENTS
January 8, 2009 I understand the importance of getting all members out when they want to play. Its not fun starting on #10 but its alot better than starting 2hrs later in the day. If anyone complains here I believe it will be because they don't understand logistics. First off, the the reasoning is to get as many golfers on the course early on sat/sun and holidays. So with the split tee we have 96 golfers on the course in 1 hour and 50 minutes. Compared to straight times which would see our 96 golfer on the course 2 hours later So our tee times are 1 hour 50 minutes in length on each nine. We aniticpate the first group to play in 2 hours which would allow them to proceed directly to the 1st or 10th tees.From the survey results it sounds like some of our members in the first groups play in 1 30 minutes if they have to wait 20 minutes on the next tee?We have never really expiernced this and if you do only take 1 30 minutes slow down as we need to continue with 1 50 minute splits to ensure we have 96 players out there. If shortened that to say 1 30 minutes we would only have80 players on the course. If that was the case we wouldnt be doing split tees then, as we need more golfers on the course. We might be trying a split in the morning and go to regular tee times in the afternoon for this year so be prepared to see this early in the spring.We will then evaluate how it went and make the call for the rest of the season at that point. |
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