MORNINGTON PENINSULA DISTRICT WOMEN’S GOLF

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 25 OCTOBER 2010

TOURNAMENT SECRETARY’S REPORT

Firstly on behalf of the Committee I would like to thank all the Districts Clubs for hosting events, pennant, handicap match play and the golf clinics without your support these events would not happen.

Events

Most of the District events were well supported this year, the player numbers for the championship qualifying rounds were reduced this year not sure as to the reason. The committee has decided that for the Championship in 2011, there will be only one qualifying round for A grade and that all grades will play on the same day. This will also help with sudden handicap changes. We are also looking at holding the match-play quarter finals on a Monday with the semi-finals and finals on a Friday so that players do not have to play 54 holes over two days. Next year we are looking at the possibility of emailing entry form to players whose email addresses we have from the 2010 event.

The Junior Championships unfortunately was cancelled again this year through lack of entries. We have decided not to hold a Junior Championship in 2011; we will review the event to see how we can make it an event that juniors want to play in.

The Champion of Champions for 2011, will be played in November, we have changed the event to include club B and C grade winners who will play in their own divisions.

Syllabus

The 2011, Syllabus has been email to club captains the championships venues are still to be confirmed. The syllabus will be on the website and can be updated at anytime throughout the year. This year we have included the opening and closing dates for district events, pennant dates and hosting clubs for the pennant divisions. You will also notice that this year the syllabus has an issue date top and bottom of each month.

Many clubs would like to have the District Syllabus earlier than October to accommodate this at the February Delegates meeting you will receive a request for hosting of District Events in 2012, this will mean that by the May Delegates meeting we will be able to provide at least a draft syllabus for 2012.

Pennant

The Committee reviewed the 2010 pennant season and this year the results of the review were posted on the website.

We decided that:

• A pennant captains meeting prior to the start of the season would be held in conjunction with the February Delegates meeting.
• In 2011 we will continue with players allowed to play in any handicap order in a team With the adoption of the USGA handicapping system and the slope system to be introduced in 2012, we feel that we should wait and see how the changes will affect the condition.  With the introduction of the slope system pennant captains would be required to ensure that players had the correct handicap for each course that they play. We would not like to see a player disqualified for a miscalculation of a handicap or a player played in the incorrect position.
• We will continue with the Thursday or Friday day of play in 2011, the last day of pennant for all divisions will be on a Thursday. The Draft Draw for 2011 has already been issued to clubs and there is an updated draw with your draft pennant conditions today. We believe that this should be enough time for clubs to inform pennant players when they will be playing.
• We do not propose to limit the number of badges to be presented. We changed the pennant conditions in regards to the number of times a player can play in a team. A condition has been introduced this year that once a player has played three games in a team they are ineligible to play in another team.
• In 2011 we will introduce the submission of clubs being required to submit a list of players with golf link numbers prior to the season starting.
• Clubs that have a bye will have to submit a team list for that round.
• The use of an A4 sheet of paper instead of the pennant books for recording teams and results there is a copy with your pennant conditions.
• For the 2011 season we have less teams entered this has caused a great deal of debate over quite a few weeks. We discussed three options, one Division 3 to have 6 teams and start the season later but finish on the same day. Two no promotion for the winning 2010 team in Division 3 and the third option was to relegate two teams from division 2. We decided on first option the divisions would be 7 teams in Division 1, 8 teams in Division 2 and 6 teams in Division 3. We have made changes to condition in regards to promotion and relegation in the 2011, the condition now reads promotion and relegation may apply in 2012.

Individual clubs set there own tee off times for pennant in some instances the ladies committee have little say in the times that they are given. I think that we all have to realise there will be occasions when we may have to play early or later.

Handicap Matchplay

I realise we needed the rain to fill dams, for our golf courses and gardens but it did cause problems during the handicap match play with some matches having to be cancelled. In 2011, we have put the Handicap matchplay in the syllabus for late May to July hoping for improved weather conditions. We did look at September / October but unfortunately we could not fit it in around club and District events.

Golf Clinics

Part of MPDWG Statement of Purposes is to promote golf as a sport of choice for women and girls and the development of women’s golf in the district. This year the committee decided to organise a ladies golf clinic for our members which the District would subsidise. WGV run similar programs in the city.

Since we were looking at a maximum of fifty ladies we needed a venue that could accommodate that number.

The first clinic was fully booked and what we learned from it was that we needed to have fewer participants per professional which we did for the second clinic. Feedback has been from the clinics have been very positive with participants requesting further clinics in 2011. Hopefully the experience from attending these clinics will lead to the participants to seek further help with their game form their club professional.

I would sincerely like to thank Ros Harding who over the last few years has spent a lot of time recording the history of district events, putting all the events and conditions of play and all the other associated documents in a digital format so instead of a heap of boxes all the information is on a memory stick which makes it much easier to store and carry. It made it very easy to pick up the work when Rick became ill in 2009 and again this year. I enjoyed working with Ros and will miss her company and emails. My best wishes go to Ros and Rick for the future.

Val Peppler

Acting Tournament Secretary