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September 2023

Captains Desk

From your Club Captain, Men's Captain and Women's Captain...

This week we are co-hosting the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Championships with Palmerston Golf Club. The Presentation Night will be at the Club on the evening of Friday 22 September 2023. Play well to all the members participating. Please note their game times are scheduled so they don't interfere with any weekday internal competitions.
We have the AFL Grand Final 4 person Ambrose on Saturday 30 September 2023 @ 8:30am, so be sure to register your team asap as spots fill up fast. The AFL Grand Final will then be on the big screen, so stay and enjoy the game at the Club. Thank you to City Tyre Services for sponsoring.
Our annual Bring a Friend 2 person Ambrose is coming up on Sunday 29 October 2023. It was originally scheduled for 15 October but we have had to move due to a scheduling clash with pennants. Remember the intent of this day is to introduce new people to our golf club. One of the players only is to be a DGC member and must have a GA handicap, but the other player is not required to have a handicap and will be allocated 27 for men and 36 for ladies. You could also bring along someone with a GA handicap but they are from another club and haven't played at DGC before. Members that do not wish to participate can still play in the morning single stroke wallflower event, however we encourage all members to embrace this event. Thank you to Andrew & Suzi Hullick for sponsoring.
Our Club Match Play final was held on Sunday 20 August 2023 with some very close games! Most went to the 18th hole and the Women's B Grade played 19 holes and Women's C Grade played 20 holes before a winner was determined. Congratulations to all winners and runners up. View the match competitors, results and photo in the Members Achievement section further on in this newsletter.
The NT Classic (Golf Australia event) was held at DGC from 25-27 August 2023. You can view full results here and the photo album here. Congratulations to the following DGC members who had a great weekend with the following overall results:
Foursomes Men's Winners Gross & Nett - Simon Chaplin & Peter Hargreaves
Women's Open Nett Winner - Ima Core
Women's Open Nett Runner up - Margi Fairless
Men's Senior Gross Runner up - David Southwell
Men's Senior Nett Runner up - Paul O'Brien
Women's Senior Nett Winner - Margi Fairless
Women's Senior Nett Runner up - Marilou Lehmann
Junior Girls Gross & Nett Runner up - Summer Dellow
Men's B Grade Gross Runner up - John Robins
Men's B Grade Nett Runner up - Brett Kroger
Women's B Grade Gross & Nett Winner - Margi Fairless
Women's B Grade Gross & Nett Runner up - Marilou Lehmann
Men's C Grade Gross Runner up - Peter Bailey
Men's C Grade Nett Winner - Paul O'Brien
Men's C Grade Nett Runner up - Roger Newman
A timely reminder that even though this competition was held at our club when it is an event organised by another body such as Golf Australia, they have their own local rules. The DGC local rules do not apply (some may but not all, and there may be some additional ones). It is recommended to all competitors to read the local rules of the competition you are about to play and if you have any questions talk to the Tournament Director or a Referee who are always present at Golf Australia events.
The Coopers Brewery Men's and Women's Foursomes was held on the weekend of 9-10 September with the following results. Shout out to Dave & Tom who are back on the podium after winning in 2021.
Men's Gross
Winners: Dave Southwell & Tom Harold R1 74 R2 74 Total 148
Runners up: Leighton Schultz & Brett Weinert R1 75 R2 75 Total 150
Men's Nett
Winners: Syd Pickering & Chris Gorst R1 69 R2 67 Total 136
Runners up: Mal Powell & James Park R1 66.5 R2 71.5 Total 138
Women's Gross
Winners: Leah Atkinson & Skye Lampton R1 82 R2 73 Total 155
Runners up: Toni McCormack & Suzi Hullick R1 81 R2 80 Total 161
Women's Nett
Winners: Leah Atkinson & Skye Lampton R1 74 R2 65 Total 139
Runners up: Jacqui Langdon & Jodie Martin R1 70 R2 70 Total 140
Best of luck to DGC junior member Darwin Butsamalee who is in QLD this week competing in the Gary Player Classic, Under 15 Division. The competition runs from the 19-22 September and you can view daily and overall results here.
Speaking of juniors, some of our newer juniors are more regularly competing in our weekend competitions with some fantastic results! On Sunday 17 September playing single stableford Sophie Minchinton had 46 points, Sienna David 44 points and Yianni Siriotis 37 points. Domenic Dellow played on Saturday 16 September in Monthly Medal Stroke play and resulted 78 Nett score. Great to see and thank you to the members that play with and support the junior development at our club.
Save the date for our Presentation Night & Closing Reception on Saturday 28 October 2023 at the Club. More details will be circulated to members shortly.

External Pennants

Men's
Men's external pennants kicked off on the weekend of 9 & 10 September 2023 and this year is captained by Evert Van Der Steeg (AKA Dutchy) supported by John Robins (JR). Well done to the DGC team with 1 win and 1 loss. On Saturday they got up 4/3 against the RAAF Club. Domenic and Paul won the 4BBB, Ross and Dave P both won, 2 x halves (Dunny and Brett), AJ lost at 17 and Chris was giving away 24 shots went down 6/5. On Sunday they all had close games but Palmy got the better of them 5 1/2 to 1 1/2. Paul Carter won, Paul and Dom got the half, everyone else lost. All 2/1, except Dunny who lost 4/3. The team is off to Katherine this weekend.

Women's
Darwin has two female teams playing again this year: Frillies (Captain: Lyn Heap) & Kingfishers (Captain: Sue Gardiner). 10 rounds are played between September and December prior to the Grand Final. Humpty Doo, RAAF and Palmerston are the other teams vying for the Pennant in 2023. it is a great opportunity to play at different Golf courses in the area and get to know some new players. Golf Australia are the External Pennant organisers and this year have introduced a couple of new things to encourage greater inclusion in the game, 6 women per team and the format is 2 games of singles plus one 4BBB. No handicap limit applies in 2023 to encourage greater uptake for new participants to golf.

Season kicks off this Saturday 23 September with our two Home teams competing against one another at Humpty Doo GC. Darwin GC hosts the women pennants 21, 22, 29 October & 12 November. All games will be played in the morning fixture. Please make the visitors welcome!

ATTENTION SOCIAL PLAYERS

A reminder that all members are required to report to the Pro Shop before going out for a hit on the course, even socially. It ensures the Pro Shop has an awareness of who is out on course for safety and emergency purposes and also provides them an opportunity to advise you about what is happening i.e. internal competition on the back 9, irrigation works, etc. Thank you.

Around the Greens

From your Director of Greens and Course Superintendent...

As previously mentioned in the President's Broadcast on 24 August 2023, the irrigation project has been delayed with anticipated completion date being end April 2024. The wet season will slow down works, particularly if we have a lot of rain, and a reduced team will work during this period. Once the rains ease the team will increase again. Temp course 3 (holes 3 & 8 closed), which is now in place, is coming along with plans to move to the next temp course in about 2 weeks.

During the NT Classic recently players would have noticed some blue lines around the inside of the bunkers. Please note these are for the Greens Crew purposes only to identify where they are not to enter the bunkers with the bunker rake, as it has been damaging some of the edges. This will allow the grass to grow back naturally. The blue lines do not 'define' the bunkers edge and they do not identify GUR, so please do not use them for any rules.

Thank you to the volunteers (younger VETS) who have been conducting working bees to remove stones and gravel from bunkers on holes out of play due to irrigation replacement project. Bunkers worked on are the 3rd,4th, 5th, 6th 7th, 8th and 10th.

Fifteen sprinkler heads were stolen from irrigation under the Mast Trees on the 6th Fairway. They have now been replaced and irrigation is back on. Possible termite infestation has been identified in these trees and will need inspection by a pest controller. In the interim the Course Super is spaying pest control in the soil.

Superintendents Course Report

Its been a very tight schedule recently and many thanks to our staff for the early starts including weekends. Many hours were done as we had a full timetable with the National Firies Championship all week in mid August followed by the NT classic, the Foursome champs, then as I write this report we have a full week of the NATSI champs shot gun starts, so it’s a credit to the crew also having to manually irrigate 18/10 fairways as a underground wiring fault has occurred with the old system. Prior to these events we managed to needle tine all greens at a depth of 150 mm, dethatch and sand (dust) I then applied wetting agent followed by carbon green controlled release prill fertiliser then irrigate with 4mm to profile prior to the wet to get my greens profile strong and healthy with strong white fibrous roots. The root system is at cup depth which is encouraging as I am promoting a strong system to prevent the dreaded ERI disease that effected greens last wet.

Next on the hit list is nutgrass/crows foot eradication, as haven’t been able to get out on full HA spraying with the amount of golf tournaments of late . The volunteer’s have been cleaning rocks from bunkers and facing them off which looks great. Grassing some bare areas on top of mounds e.g. 3rd. All in all with not a drop of rain for prob 5 months were in pretty good shape. We now have 5 full holes on the new irrigation system , looking forward to this project being completed as it takes a lot of time keeping existing system up and running with mains leaks, pressures etc keeping areas alive, green and playable.

Happy golfing!
Damon Quigley Course Superintendent DGC

Members Achievements

2023 Match Play winners (L-R) Paul O'Brien, Ralph Wiese, Paul Dellow, Skye Lampton, Judy Major, Christine Jensen.

NT Classic Men's Foursomes Winners (Gross & Nett) Peter Hargreaves & Simon Chaplin.

NT Classic Crystal Shark Winner (Women's Open Nett) Ima Core pictured with DGC President Paul O'Brien.

2023 Coopers Brewery Foursomes Men's Gross Winners Tom Harold & David Southwell.

2023 Coopers Brewery Foursomes Women's Gross & Nett Winners Leah Atkinson & Skye Lampton.

2023 Coopers Brewery Foursomes Men's Nett Winners Syd Pickering & Chris Gorst.

2023 National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Championship participants.

Congratulations to Skye Lampton who recently won Sportswoman of the Year at the inaugural REPRESENT! Indigenous Sports Awards.

DGC member Ken Lehmann achieved a hole-in-one during the 2023 Vietnam World Masters Golf Championship held during September.

Rules Education

Double Green

At Darwin Golf Club we have 1 double green on the 3rd and the 7th holes. This double green is treated as a single putting green at our course. This means if you are playing the 3rd hole and your ball ends up on the 7th green, you do not have to take relief from a wrong green.

The hole of the green you are not playing is defined as Ground Under Repair (GUR) and free relief is allowed if:

ball at rest is touching, or in, or on;
physical interference with area of intended swing or stance;
line of play only if your ball is on the putting green - yes one of the rare instances where you get line of play relief from GUR.

You need to find your nearest point of complete relief and place the ball. This is free relief in accordance with Rule 16.1d and remember the flag is a movable obstruction so you can always remove it if it interferes.

Note that there is a local rule that can be enacted which does divide a double green into 2 separate greens, so if playing at another club be sure to read their local rules. Remember to always take relief from a wrong green by finding your nearest point of complete relief off the green and dropping the ball within 1 club length, in accordance with Rule 13.1f. If you do not do this you will receive the General Penalty (2 strokes) for playing from a Wrong Place. A common hole this occurs on at DGC is players on hole 3 ending up on the green of hole 8.

Amy Griesbach

Golf Australia Rules Official - Level 2

Upcoming Events

30 September 2023 * AFL Grand Final Ambrose * 4 person * Sponsored by City Tyre Service
28 October 2023 * Closing Reception & Presentation Night
29 October 2023 * Bring a Friend * 2 person Ambrose * Sponsored by Andrew & Suzi Hullick
26 November 2023 * AGM @ 9:00am

A large flock of Plumed Whistling Ducks have recently made their home in the waterway between the 8th & 15th holes. The resident Burdekin Ducks seem to have accepted their presence.

Darwin Golf Club: Links Road, Marrara, NT 0812
T: +61 8 8927 1322
W: www.darwingolfclub.com.au