President’s Patter June 2022

2022 South West Open

Wow, what an outstanding success this year’s South West Open turned out to be! The feedback I have received from members and visitors has been full of praise for every aspect of this event. I extend a heartfelt thanks to the many members who volunteered their time to contribute to the success of this event and of course to our GM Des and his great team for pulling together a well organised and smoothly run weekend.

As President it was a source of extreme frustration that due to being struck down with Covid I could not take an active part in any aspect of this. I am gratified that all who were involved pulled to together over the four days from the Sportspersons dinner on the Thursday till the close of the event on Sunday. Thank you to Greg Trevaskis who, as Vice President, stepped in at short notice to assist with the formalities. To all of you who were involved in whatever capacity thank you!

The SWO weekend highlights our Club and provides great profile to both the PGA, visiting professionals and visitors and really helps us showcase who and what we are as a Club.

Kikuyu Eradication

The steady emergence of Kikuyu on the course calls for a more focussed approach. Life Member Bevin Martin aided by a couple of helpers has been undertaking some spraying however Bevin is calling for a additional volunteers so that a more systematic approach can be achieved in concert with the efforts of our small but dedicated grounds team led by Superintendent Dave.

The Grounds Committee will be looking more closely at this over coming weeks in order to make further recommendations to the Board towards effective management. It is certainly the case that a number of metro clubs have simply walked away from trying to manage this issue and allowed their fairways to become kikuyu this is due to the difficulty of eradication and the cost involved, bearing in mind that these clubs also have significantly larger fulltime grounds staff available to them than we do.

Currently there is a team of 3 members assisting in this project, however the aim is to build this to a pool of about 10 members and this will allow us to meet our objectives without being too onerous on club members assisting.

A team of 3 spraying over a 2-hour period covers a significant area. Spraying is done early in the morning prior to too much activity happening on the course.

Grounds Super Dave has an objective to significantly reduce the Kikuyu on the course, which is supported by the Board:

• Fairways – to significantly reduce the kikuyu on fairways in the first instance. This plan is likely to extend over a couple of years.
• Lead into greens and immediate surrounds – to eliminate Kikuyu and continual monitoring in this regard.
• Tees and surrounds – similar objective as for fairways.
• Rough areas to be boom sprayed with a product which is less expensive than that used in the playing areas.
• Develop a plan to monitor all of the above areas so as the course will be relatively free of Kikuyu.

The Club is seeking volunteers to assist for a maximum of 2 hours per week or less.

We still have an opportunity to present to members a course which is relatively free of Kikuyu, however we do need to act now.

I certainly intend to be a part of this and those wishing to find out more about taking an active and positive role in assisting the Club with this project can contact GM Des at the Club or Bevin on 0409 098 853.

Covid

This has been a topic of discussion for obvious reasons around the Club over recent weeks and all of us have an opinion on what could/should be done to assist in limiting exposure. Bearing in mind that that Covid is now rife throughout the Southwest regardless of where you are and of course, venues like ours provide an environment where you can be exposed.

The Club is complying with the requirements set by the WA Health Department but we all must take personal responsibility and have a role to play in trying to limit our own exposure and that of others as much as possible by adhering to good personal hygiene and mask wearing where required.

Many of us have fallen ill through exposure outside of the Club either through our children or other family members etc. I came down with it myself a couple of weeks ago and, unfortunately on my part, it was way more than a ‘slight head cold’ so I am very grateful to have been triple vaccinated and am slowly on the improve. As ever if you feel unwell or have cold like symptoms please keep away from the Club until you are feeling better and monitor your symptoms by taking a RAT or PCR test.

In the meantime I wish all good health and happy golfing.

Rob Litttlewood

President