From the Golf Shop
This has been an interesting week as the Covid-19 Pandemic hit close to home. I’ll share this short story in the hopes that it helps all of us stay vigilant and respectful of the ripple effects that letting our guards down may cause. My twin daughters, five years old, had runny noses, small cough, and a sore throat on September 29. My other two children, my wife and I, did not have any symptoms. Being cautious, we decided to take the twins to be tested on the morning of the 30th. When the schools learned that we were testing the young ones, they immediately put the older kids in isolation. My wife, who is a teacher, was able to leave to go and get the older kids and we decided to all get tested. The entire process took five hours and it I was quite impressed with the patience that all the people showed while waiting in line. Thankfully the weather was decent. The result took 6 days to come in with all six of us having to stay off of school and work until we eventually received the good news that the results were negative. It did cause quite a disruption in schedules and of course there’s the anxiety of awaiting the results. The important message that I need to express clearly is that we need to be respectful of the ripple effects that being careless can cause. If I had come to work and given other staff or club members the cold that our family had, the same disruption could have occurred to them and potentially their friends/colleagues. Consider the ripple effect that travels through the workplace and family lives. Please do not come to the club if you are not feeling well; please respect the requests made regarding masks, social distancing, washing hands, etc; and please remember how lucky we have been here at the club so far with no Covid-19 related incidents all year. We have a few weeks left, so let’s finish up staying healthy.
The final Match Play of the year has been completed and congratulations go to Ken Flieger and Ken Dumond on their victory over Kent Osborne and Len Timmerman. That wraps up all the match plays for the year and I hope you all enjoyed those head to head games and enjoyed a beverage or two after each round. After all, the main purpose of all of these events is to get the members together for some friendly competition and a few laughs after the round.
That brings me to a good end of season topic which is reflecting on the events as a whole from this 2020 season. Overall the feedback has been very positive with many are thankful that we planned and executed so many events, in a season where many clubs either cancelled all events or greatly reduced their fixture list. There is always some feedback that is critical and comes to us with some thought and consideration. This is valuable, and we take note of it. Generally, after an event we have decent notion on how it went and what needs to change for next year. For the most part the constructive criticism that comes in line with what we observed as well, making the decision on adjustment essentially a guarantee. We also receive suggestions that we hadn’t considered, and the merit is so strong that we add it to the resolution list. We also receive suggestions that we will not act on as we don’t feel it would be a positive resolution for the membership group as a whole. However, sometimes those suggestions are excellent ideas for some special, member organized events that we can assist in booking and assisting it, but not under the umbrella of a ‘club event’. There are specific events that we know need to be looked at again and refined for 2021. The Men’s Club Championship comes to mind, specifically related to the flighting system that we went with, some loved it, some didn’t. The purpose of it was to have your own performance within the event establish what flight you should be in. We saw some players show their competitive playing potential on day one, and they were flighted accordingly. Day two saw some maintain that potential, and others that didn’t. Ultimately we’ll likely go back to a more traditional flighted system for the B, C, & D flights for 2021 where you enter and stay within your flight, however the Championship and A Flights will have a similar feel with it potentially moving to a 3 day event with a 3rd round division reorganization. Having a net element to this event was not included for 2020, and will not return in 2021. For the Men’s Section, due to the strong participation numbers, it would be more suitable to organize a 2 day net championship to establish this type of recognition versus combining with the regular Club Championship. It is a valuable experience for all skill levels to play gross scored events occasionally, such as gross within your flight that we used in the Club Championship and periodically at Men’s Days this year.
The Masters is designed as a fun event and it becomes more and more apparent as the season moved along that people really wanted to be a part of it. Now that we have two years under our belt on seeing how the qualification worked, we’ll take a good look at each event and weigh the competitive merit of it versus whether or not is should grant automatic exemption for a win, the point values associated with the event, and so on. The club also decided to introduce special invites to our Men’s and Ladies team league captains and will do so again for 2021.
There have been a good number of other suggestions roll in that will work well for event enhancement, and some that may be great to try out amongst yourselves to see how they go. Overall, we are essentially in a stage where we are strengthening existing traditions and solidifying some that are new. High handicappers want more net events, low handicappers want more gross, cottagers want more weekday events, weekday workers want more weekend events, more serious events, more fun events, and it goes on down that road for as far you wish. Coming up with a balanced schedule that hopefully touches all the demographics throughout the season is the accepted challenge and evolves with the makeup and culture at a club. And so begins the planning for the 2021 season where we will take all that we have learned, the respectful feedback that comes in, and mix it all together to create what we hope will be an event better year at the club where all feel welcome to come out and play in the events. We must keep perspective, knowing that the vast majority of the players at our events have not played competitive golf at a high level, and frankly have little interest in doing so. So, we try to keep it fun, social, varied in format, and moderately competitive. There can be those that take it too seriously creating a tense atmosphere, and those that take it too loosely, breaking the simplest of rules/etiquette that ultimately erodes the integrity of the competition and heavily distract their playing partners. These golfers are at opposite ends of the spectrum and may not get as much enjoyment as those that are somewhere near the middle. Play fair, have fun, know your audience, and let’s keep the good times rolling.
Well, that’s enough for this week. See you all soon, and enjoy the beautiful Fall colours.
Chris McNair
