General Managers Message
Allan Botha

Kia ora Members,

I’ve missed you all this week!

Believe it or not, I’ve been up in Auckland attending a four-day, 32-hour BMI CMAA (Club Management Association of America) course. It was an intensive but incredibly rewarding experience, covering everything from accounting and marketing through to leadership, club culture, and communications — and just about everything in between.

The first day of the course was held at the world-famous Tara Iti, and it was a real privilege to learn from some of the top club managers in the country. I had to stay very focused and not get too distracted by the stunning surroundings… unfortunately, we didn’t get the chance to play! We were in sunny Auckland for the rest of the week attending our sessions at Remuera Golf Club.

One of the real highlights was meeting like-minded club managers from a wide range of clubs throughout New Zealand. It was fascinating to hear what works for them, what doesn’t, their challenges, and their wins. We share so many common experiences that it was almost funny at times. While the course content was excellent, the connections made were just as valuable — I now have a strong network of peers I can reach out to, share ideas with, and learn from going forward.

I’m very much looking forward to seeing all your friendly faces again soon and bringing some of this learning back to Omokoroa as we continue to grow and improve together.

See you at the club.

Logo Update & Member Voting

By Sue Dark, Board Member

I’m pleased to share that we’ve received a strong range of new logo designs, all of which met the agreed brief and were submitted on time. Each design brings its own unique concept while reflecting the values and identity of Omokoroa Golf Club.

The logos, along with their design concepts,

OGC_Logo_Design_Concepts.pdf

LogoChoices_OGC.pdf

are for members to review at their leisure. Once you’ve had time to consider them, I encourage you to cast your vote via the online voting form linked here.

Members now have one more week to submit their vote. Please note that each member is entitled to one vote only, and all results will be independently audited.

Voting will now close on Friday, 8 May.

Thank you for taking the time to be part of this important decision for the future of our club.

— Sue Dark
Board Member, Omokoroa Golf Club

Calling All Volunteers – Mangrove Seedling Removal (Urgent)

We are once again calling for volunteers to help with our annual mangrove seedling removal, an initiative that has been led for many years by John Herder.

At this stage, we have only one volunteer registered, which unfortunately means we will need to postpone the planned Monday, 4 May working bee to Monday, 11 May unless more members put their hand up.

This may be John’s final year running this important operation as he prepares to hand over the reins, and it would be fantastic to show our appreciation with a strong turnout. The work makes a real difference to our environment and to the club, and many hands truly do make light work.

If you are able to help — even for a short time — your support would be greatly appreciated.

Please click the link below to join the “Mangrove Team” and register your availability.

Let’s work together to make this happen.

Click Here to join

Driving Range Ball Pickup – Thank You Junior Golfers

Thank you to all our junior golfers who have submitted expressions of interest in the driving range ball pickup roles. It’s fantastic to see such enthusiasm and willingness to get involved around the club.

Submissions are now closed, and we are currently reviewing the applications received. If you missed out but would still like to be considered, please feel free to email me directly and I will keep your name on a standby list should an opportunity become available.

Winter Range hours are 7:30 to 16:30

Once again, thank you to everyone who applied — your interest and support are greatly appreciated.

Rosie Tray

Congratulations to Vicki and Andrew Morgan. Winners of this years Rosie Tray.

The weather played its part, and we got a beautiful morning with a shotgun start at 9am. Was great to see some team uniforms out on the course.

Special thanks to Raewyn and Linley from Barfoot & Thompson for their very generous sponsorship.

A Word Around The Greens
Nathan Kerr, Head Greenkeeper

This week i am going to talk about the greens regarding green speed, trueness and general health.

So to start with, the greens are mowed at 3.70mm and we have been mowing them 6 days a week on average as we do not work on the course in Sundays.

Normally we would mow them every 2nd day and roll the greens on the days we don’t mow but the growth this spring, summer and now into autumn has been unusual with humid, rainy days fuelling the growth so mowing the greens everyday has been required.

As for greens speed and trueness of ball roll I have heard numerous comments that our greens are slow and need speeding up.

The shocking weather we have had this spring and summer has meant that we have not been able to virti cut the greens and sand dust after the virti cutting as often as we would have liked to keep the greens quicker and truer too putt on.

Normally I would be doing this process every 2 weeks but on average it has been monthly as we can’t do this process effectively and with out causing a mess on the greens if it’s constantly wet which it has been.

This process done every 2 weeks dramatically helps with greens being faster and truer to putt on.

Secondary to this process the greens have not been getting rolled as much as they normally would be because of the grass growth we have been experiencing, so mowing them has been more of a priority than rolling so that we can keep up with the grass growth.

Ideally we would be mowing and rolling the greens every day which is what clubs such as Taurnaga, Mount and Omanu do as they have double the green keeping staff and 2 greens mowers and 2 rollers in there sheds, we have 1 mower and 1 roller so that is 2 of us mowing and rolling the greens which is a 3.5 hour job every morning leaving 1 green keeper to take care of the rest of the golf course which isn’t manageable.

The other clubs send 4 green keepers out every morning to mow and roll the greens, 2 guys per 9, and get the job done in half the time as it would take me and my staff, but there greens are clearly faster because of this process.

So basically to have our greens consistently faster and truer we would need to purchase another greens mower and another roller and then have another green keeper employed to make this process achievable.

As for the greens health, we have had huge fungal disease pressure on the greens because of the humid wet conditions which feed fungal activity, so more fungicide spraying applications have been required to keep them alive which is one green keeper spraying greens alot more often than a usual spring summer which is all time out of the working day.

I hope this information has helped with the understanding of the greens speed, trueness and general health.

Enjoy the sunshine that we are finally are receiving??

9 Hole Ladies
Yvonne Hoskins

In super golfing weather, and the course looking great, this week we played Round 3 of Shootout and Stableford Cup, with a stableford haggle.  We also had closest to the pin on holes 4 and 11.  Some good golfing scores came in.  Top stableford score was won today by Rohanne Hancock with 22 points.  Marg Griffiths came in with 20, followed by Yvonne Hoskins, Sue Smith and Margaret Findsen with 19.    Closest to the pin on hole 4 was Amelia Hempill and hole 11 was Robyn Falconer.  Amelia and Robyn both received a ball.  Well done to all the winners.

9 Hole Men
Fred Hartley

                        Men's Nine Hole Golf- Thursday 30th April

    What a great day  for golf in this the second round of the Championship

     Strokeplay for both Divisions. Congratulatios to the winners and runners up 

    in the true test to find the best golfers, playing 'off the stick', ie gross score.

    Division 1 Champion - Tom Hansen with a total 84 gross for the 2 rounds,

    and runner up Frank Lamborn with a score of 86.

    Division 2 Champion- Bruce Baggenstos on 104 gross, joint runners up

    Colin Griffiths and Spencer Tankard on 106.

   Haggle results-

Front nine    Shaun Sutcliffe           46  gross

                    Chris Hogan               50

                    Bruce Baggenstos       52

                    Jim Avis                     52

Back nine   Tom Hansen                38 gross

                   Kevin Bowick                41

                    Frank Lamborn            43

                    Lawson Stewart           43

    Next week    Round No 1 Matchplay Championship