Friday 8th May 2020
Lockdown Day 46
Sunday brings a little chill in the air, which is accompanied by a long Email from our
General Manager, Alex Hill.
It gives a sobering reflexion on how things will be drastically different up there, but of course no date can be know until Boris speaks to us all at 19:00.
Our challenge will be to maintain the structure of our wonderful Seniors Section, so that we do not dissolve into smaller groups that are hard to re-assemble later on in the year.
It is a very well though-out Memorandum and I think the Blog owes the Club the respect to print it in full here, without alteration for you to digest in your own time and plan your golfing life for the weeks ahead.
Dear Members,
I
hope everybody is taking care and staying safe.
In
anticipation that golf courses may be able to open in the near future, England
Golf and the R&A have issued guidelines on how golf may be played safely.
Unfortunately
this means that we will have to issue temporary restrictions. There are a
number of areas under these guidelines that will need to be considered.
- Setting up of the course
- Before the round
- During the round
- After the round
- Rules of golf related matters
Each
of these topics will be looked at over the coming weeks as we work out what we
can do in the light of emerging guidance from government and golfing bodies. We
know everyone is desperate to get back on the course and we envisage that when
lockdown is lifted the demand will be very high. We will therefore be
introducing measures that ensure everyone has the opportunity to play whilst
keeping themselves and others safe.
We are anticipating that we will be looking to apply the
following arrangements in the first three to four weeks:
- The course will be open for social golf for members only.
- Tee time booking will be carried out over the phone or in the Pro Shop only. We will ask members to not come to the club unless they have a booked time. You will be refused access to the course if you do not have a reserved tee time.
- We will have no reserved slots for categories such as Seniors and Ladies roll ups etc.
- You will be able to book 7 days in advance only.
- Groups will initially only be allowed out in a maximum of a 3 ball. You will be able to book a time for yourself and your playing partners.
- Time slots will be extended to every 10 minutes.
- Members will be restricted to booking 2 rounds per week to give as many people as possible the opportunity to play. However additional rounds can be booked 24 hours in advance if there are still slots available.
- Sign in will be in the Pro Shop and will be compulsory before your round. Safety measures will be in place. Maximum of 2 people in the shop at all times.
- There is to be no queuing on the 1st tee. Only the group teeing off should be on the tee.
- We ask that members do not turn up too early but leave enough time only to get their equipment ready. Otherwise they should stay in their car until it is time to move to the tee.
- The driving range will be closed until further notice.
- The Pitch and Putt Course will open as usual however tee times must be reserved before arrival as per the main course. Hire equipment will not be available. Maximum 2 people.
- Only 3 people will be allowed on the putting green and short game area respectively. Time limited to 10 minutes per person.
- Buggies will not be initially available however this will be reviewed as the situation progresses.
- Rental pull trollies will be available and the handles will be sanitised regularly. Electric trollies will not be initially available.
- Limited access will be given to the clubhouse toilets which will be regularly cleaned and sanitised.
- The changing rooms will be closed until further notice. If you need to come and pick up your clubs and personal belongings from your locker, please contact the Office.
- Scorecards may not be necessary but if used should not be swapped with partners.
- Members are not allowed to congregate in the car park or at the front of the clubhouse.
- After your round you must leave the course and club immediately.
- All competitions, roll up’s and opens will be cancelled / postponed. We hope to gradually introduce competitive golf when appropriate.
Course Conditions
It
is likely that due to reduced maintenance it will take some time for the course
to return to ‘normal’ condition.
Obvious
issues will be:
- Reduced pace of greens through higher cutting heights.
- Higher cutting heights in all / most maintained areas.
- Lengthier rough areas, particularly in ‘out of play’ areas.
- Untidy bunkers – initially GUR.
- Lack of golf course furniture such as bunker rakes, bins, ball washers and benches.
In
returning the course to a more ‘normal’ condition, green keepers will ensure
that heights of cut that have been raised during the course closure period are
reduced slowly so as not to put undue stress on the plant. If heights are
reduced too quickly it will encourage disease and weed / pest encroachment.
Additionally,
annual maintenance for the course will have been affected by the course closure
period, meaning that the Autumn course maintenance has been cancelled and the
finishing of the 15th tee renovation has been delayed.
It
is possible that staff levels or hours of work will remain at a reduced level
during the initial stages of play being permitted so progress may be slower
than usual.
Membership
As
you are all hopefully aware, the 2020 membership fee was due on 1st April. Of
course we understand the exceptional circumstances and the reasons where some
members have chosen to hold back on renewal. That said we are incredibly
grateful to the majority of members who have re-joined and supported the golf
club financially through these difficult times. We will therefore be strictly
prioritising tee times to these people and only paid up members will be able to
make bookings.
Due to the current circumstances we have agreed to extend
the membership year for a period equating to the length of any closure
exceeding 2 weeks by moving the 1st April 2021 renewal date accordingly. This
was mentioned on my previous email from 24th March.
To pay your membership or for any further questions please
do not hesitate to contact me on: alex@cricketstthomasgolfclub.co.uk.
OR
Call the Office on 01460 30231 Ext. 3 between 8am and 12pm
(Monday – Sunday).
As
I am sure you will all appreciate, these measures will be subject to change and
will be closely monitored as the situation progresses.
Take
care, stay safe and I look forward to seeing you all soon.
Kind Regards,
Alex Hill
General Manager
That's an awful lot to digest and will not taste too good for many of you. As predicted yesterday, the Tee-Booking System has already been taken down from their Website and all bookings erased.
If we are sensible, we can still make something of this and being a 3-ball system - we can still have some fun.
Our biggest advantage is the facility of the BLOG
We can communicate widely and maybe even try and have a few competitions, as agreed with the Captain. We can print out our own Score Cards ( designed by Ray G) - and Members can Email results to any of us to show a few results.
We are happy to offer separate pages to other sections to control if they wish to use them, Ladies, Eggs etc
Of course, what many of us will miss the most is the Social Side of our Section, so maybe we could resume a weekly Zoom Meeting as we had a few weeks ago. The only reason we have not repeated the Zoom Meeting is that no-one asked for it !
 |
| My thoughts exactly ! |
If you are unsure who to blame right now, ..blame the cat !
The Man Who Gave Up Sex for Golf...AND...Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining...
A golfer is in a competitive match with a friend, who is ahead by a couple of strokes.
"Boy, I’d give anything to sink this putt", the golfer mumbles to himself.
Just then, some stranger walks up beside him and whispers, “Would you be willing to give up a quarter of your sex life to sink the putt?"
Thinking the man is crazy and his answer will be meaningless, the golfer also feels that maybe this is a good omen, so he says, "Sounds good to me," and promptly sinks the putt!
Two holes later, he mumbles to himself again, "Gosh, I wish I could get an eagle on this one."
The same stranger is suddenly at his side again and whispers, “Would it be worth giving up another quarter of your sex life to make an eagle?"
Shrugging, the golfer replies, "Okay." And, amazingly, he makes the eagle.
On the final hole, the golfer needs another eagle to win. Without waiting for him to say anything, the stranger quickly moves to his side and says, “Could winning this match be worth giving up the rest of your sex life?”
"Definitely," the golfer replies, and sure enough he makes the eagle and wins the match.
As the golfer
is walking to the club house, the stranger walks along beside him and says,
"I haven't really been fair with you because you don't know who I am. I’m
Satan, and from this day forward you really will have no sex life at all."“Nice to meet you," the golfer replies. "I'm Father O'Malley.
Now I've watched this a couple of times and I think the second Lady thinks the first Lady is towing the Skip !
Thanks Peter.
This Gentleman donated all his joints to knackered Seniors and now has a very interesting set of skills...
James sends us actual footage of the first Human Beanz on an alien planet...
Fancy a Lift ?
The one comes with a cursing warning - just one near the end...
..bit of Trivia from Dave...
On 13 May
1940, Winston Churchill delivered his ‘I have nothing to offer but blood, toil,
tears and sweat’ speech in the House of Commons. Along with a likeness of
Churchill, this phrase features at the bottom of the on the £5 note featuring
Churchill introduced in 2016.
How can we tell the exact time the Speech was made ?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
How can we tell the exact time the Speech was made ?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
We hope you all enjoyed your VE Day celebrations yesterday, to mark such a momentous day.
I see any hope of changed behaviour is pretty short lived as many members have been on-line to grab Tee-Times , even from today, which to my simple mind seems a little strange.
At best, we should hope for Boris to relax exercise rules a little but with so many deaths and new infections, why would they even think of taking any risks ?
Monday May 18th may be possible, but even that seems a tad optimistic, but I can't see how any single booking would have any value as the Club will probably have to reset the whole booking system to 10 Minute Gaps and Max 3-Balls - whatever comes out of the melting pot.
I'm sure the Section representatives will be called up to discuss arrangements when a date is given.
From what we hear, we may see many Members not return to Golf as they seem to be enjoying life at home in the sunshine. I had reason to drive out the Kingsbury Episcopi last week ( Medical) - what a lovely drive it was down the narrow lanes, seeing Walkers and Families of Cyclists out together enjoying each other company - just like watching a 'Famous-Five ' Movie.I see from Social Media that our Captain is a little upset that we didn't publish his putting masterclass video. It wasn't for the reasons that we have not shown many others ( Censored)_ - but just at 20+ Megabits it was a bit too long to Email and post, but to keep him happy we'll show it here,
(took 14 minutes to upload from PC to Blog)
..we have to warn you, seeing James do that from 3 feet makes you very nervous as a playing partner, but he is rather good at it !
Richard has found the answer to all our PPE problems, bring in the professions.
Next is a Video we missed from Yesterday from Capt, show some very resourceful young children.
Remember we told you that one of our Members had sent away for a CV19 Test Kit, well his results are back and he is over the Moon.,..
Now a very clever one from Paul England, there do seems to be rather a lot of squirrels around at the moment.
We'll finish on this last sunny day for a while with a couple of pretty scary one, first - an example of how not to train your Dog !
I saved it as 'Dog Terror'...
and finally an excellent example of bullying, where a Cat learns to pick on someone NOT your own size.... what a disgrace to the feline world - Need Stuart Pope and his Yorkie !
Have you sent Frankie your Bird Count Yet - he's collating all the results this weekend and I'm pretty confident I've nailed it, but the chat with Alyson certainly helped.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
We got so close to correctly predicting that Boris would be tempted to end isolation on this day, but with over 600 still dying every day and 6000 new infections, his hands were tied.
Amazing that with the magic 'R' figure being down at around 0.7, still means there must be over 9,000 out there with the Virus somewhere.
UK getting a bashing in the International Press about our Death Rate, still can't work out with all our systems, how we are not getting any better at keeping people alive ?
Hope you are celebrating today, just can't imagine how they felt after 7 Years of conflict and so many dead...
World War II was the deadliest military conflict in history. An estimated total of 70–85 million people perished, which was about 3% of the 1940 world population with the UK losing nearly half a million people.
So lets get back to our own little world and thanks for all the entries today.
This first little chap is pretty amazing, not just for his Maths, but just for his personality and self-confidence.
Humour of long ago, still makes us smile.
Dad got nil Brownie Points when he took this one home to Mum...
Next a few problems with Peckers... Ouch !
Think we might get away with this one..apologies in advance.
Tolio!.......
A young couple left the church and arrived at the hotel where they were spending the first night of their honeymoon.
They opened the champagne and began undressing.
When the bridegroom removed his socks, his new wife asked, "What's wrong with your feet? Your toes look all mangled and weird.
"I had tolio as a child," he answered.
"You mean polio?" she asked.
"No, tolio. The disease only affected my toes."
When the groom took off his pants, his bride once again asked "What's wrong with your knees? They're all lumpy and deformed!"
"As a child, I also had kneasles," he explained.
"You mean measles?" she asked.
"No, kneasles. It was a strange illness that only affected my knees."
The new bride had to be satisfied with this answer.
As the undressing continued, her husband at last removed his underwear.
"Don't tell me," she said.
"Let me guess... Smallcox !
Five blokes in an Audi Quattro
arrived at the ferry checkpoint in Harwich, Essex.
Tracey, in her brand new uniform,
stops them and tells them:
"I can't let you on the ferry.
It is illegal to have 5 people in a Quattro. Quattro means four..
One of you will have to get out and
stay behind."
"Quattro is just the name of the car," the driver replies disbelievingly.
"Quattro is just the name of the car," the driver replies disbelievingly.
"Look at the papers: this car
is designed to carry five persons."
"You cannot pull that one on me. This is Tracey you're talking to here," she replies with a smile.
"You cannot pull that one on me. This is Tracey you're talking to here," she replies with a smile.
"Quattro means four. You have
five people in your car and you are therefore breaking the law.
So I can't let you onto the ferry.
It's more than my job's worth to let you all on."
The driver is now very cross and replies angrily,
The driver is now very cross and replies angrily,
"I've had enough of you. Call
your supervisor over. I want to speak to someone with more intelligence!"
"Sorry," responds Tracey, "but Sharon is busy with those two blokes in the Fiat Uno."
"Sorry," responds Tracey, "but Sharon is busy with those two blokes in the Fiat Uno."
Now the next one does contain a tirade of swear words issued, quite justifiably, by a young Lady - so please do not view if you are easily offended….but I just couldn't resist posting such an act of suicidal bravery by the Man making the film...
You watched it didn't you ?
Let's finish today with two nice ones, first an irresistible baby's Smile
Then one I keep watching and still can't quite work out all of the mechanics, but what a team they make.
