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Captain Shouts Fore

If there was nothing to do in June as Captain, July certainly made up for that. It started on 7 July, where I played in the SA Golf Development Board day at Benoni Lake. This was the first national tournament arranged by SAGDB for under 19’s. I played with Billy Bekker (Northerns Captain) and two youngsters, Gift Zulu from Royal Swazi and Franklin Manchest from George. What a great experience to play with these two talented youngsters. I also bumped into Andy Ostle who is still hard at work in arranging these events and teaching the boys manners and etiquette. I can assure all of you that our Furtherance of Golf funds are being well spent. I was also fortunate to be made an offer by Gift to be my caddy at Swaziland. I have his number and will certainly take up his offer and listen to the lines he gives me.

On the 9th – eight of us made our way to Botswana for their 15th National Tournament. It was sad to see the club house at Gaborone Golf Club all black and in ruins from the fire in March. Under the circumstances, with a temporary tent structure as the club house, my congratulations to Taff Williams on a well organised tournament. Thanks to those who made the trip from Gauteng and particularly Dawid Ferreira and Terry White who played in their first National event. Although Botswana is becoming expensive (thanks to an ailing Rand) and the quality of the food produced is less than mediocre, the event itself is always worth attending and I urge those who have never been to a Botswana National tournament to support Barry next year.

On to Parkview for our monthly game. Thanks to the Parkview Captain (James Fussell), Stewart Vernon (receiving his five year tie) and Joe de Klerk (for all you do for Gauteng Nomads as well as the snacks at Parkview) for joining me on the day. Congratulations to Derek Cuthbert on his 20 year tie and to John Welsh on receiving his 350 game badge and Roz Lewis-Williams on her 30 year service award. The course was superb with arguably the best greenside bunkers we have seen this year. We had a field of only 116 (our lowest this year) and 20% of which had “paid to go.” Having a look at the statistics, we only had 116 last year at Glenvista in the same month. Must be the weather and time of year as opposed to the course we select. Glenvista is a far cheaper day, with the cost at more than half of Parkview.

An early flight to East London the next morning and bus trip to Fish River Sun for Border’s 40th anniversary and the 119th National Management Meeting. What a great venue selected by Tom Cawood and Mark Lindstrom for this anniversary. I always prefer a trip where all the guys stay at the same venue and can interact with one another and there is no need for anybody to be driving. The anniversary was a success and well attended by most of the coastal clubs.

One important thing to come out of the NMM was our allocation for Knysna Nationals. Gauteng will have 39 spots, so I suggest you start giving your names to Mike Payne if you intend entering.

See you at the next game.

 

Graham Bishop

 

 

My initial intention in writing these monthly inserts was to follow a diary type report. It seems however that if you would like to arrange any Nomads events in the future and are concerned that it may conflict with other events, June is the month to do it. What an uneventful time as Captain. The only thing I can attribute to this must be the onset of winter.

I think you will all agree that the committee has gone to great lengths to improve the winter clothing on offer. All our clothing is now branded and colour co-ordinated. We have sleeveless and long sleeve jackets, white and black under shirts, beanies and navy blue jerseys for after the game. Please adhere to our dress code and order your clothing from Bev.

The change in climate was certainly evident at our Bryanston game. I managed to maintain my concentration for the first two holes and then the thought of another 16 of those kicked in. Under the trying conditions, I thought that Bryanston looked in good condition and the improvements to their facilities make it a top Joburg course. It certainly played more difficult than when we there in January. At this stage I would usually thank the Captain, Vice-Captain or committee member from Bryanston for joining us on the day, but I can omit this section. I did however have the pleasure of playing with Pat Frampton on his 100th game and Robbie Von Hagen who received his 10 year tie. Thanks to Steve Anticevich for joining us in what was almost a three ball. Unfortunately once again there were some members who finished in the dark. We tried our best to move the allocated first tee off time from 11h14 to 10h45. Unfortunately there were 7 ladies fourballs, all off one tee and our 128 players had to be a little patient.

On the day I had the privilege of buying Ken Blake and his three ball a drink on the 18th hole. Congratulations to Ken on his 45 year tie and if that was not dedication enough, he has never missed a game. Of those 45 years, Ken has spent 40 of them on the Gauteng committee. Thanks, once again, to Ken for all his efforts and archiving – I managed to rent a bakkie from Tempest and have collected his archive files from his home.

You will slowly see that we have introduced a calendar year, to be embroidered under the Gauteng Nomads logo on the playing shirt. The year depicted on the shirt will denote the year in which that person was Captain of Gauteng/Transvaal. This is certainly not compulsory for previous Captain’s but I think it is an initiative worth supporting. As a 5 year Nomad and playing together for the first time at Houghton, how was I to know that Richard Moore was Captain in 1988? I am pleased to see that Richard has given me his shirt and it is off to Dion Cuyler for embroidery. If there are any other previous Captain’s that would like their year embroidered onto their shirt, please bring it to me at a monthly game and I will arrange it and return it at the next game.

The next few weeks of Nomads appear more eventful, starting with a trip to my 5th Botswana Nationals. We have a team of 8 guys going up to represent South Africa. Shortly thereafter we are off to attend the Border 40th anniversary and then the Highveld Trophy at Wingate.

Lastly – one of the reasons for attending the Boland anniversary is to represent Gauteng at the 119th National Management Meeting. Prior to attending, I am required to submit a report that elaborates on the status of our Club. The report has taken me many hours to compile so I thought I would include a small snippet. You may have noticed that in our minutes of our first meeting, we discussed the wearing of our red “Panaino” hats at National prize-givings. Just to clarify our position on this. One of our long standing members, Ronnie Panaino, who was inducted in June 1978 and who most people associate with the wearing of his traditional red or black hat, was going to play his 34th and final National Tournament in 2012 at Southern Natal Nationals at Port Shepstone. For this reason we decided to introduce the red hat to acknowledge Ronnie and bid him farewell at Nationals. We have after consideration of the comments received from various people and in particular, “the wearing of a hat under a closed roof is a sign of disrespect,” decided that we will no longer be wearing these hats at any future National Tournaments.”

See you at the next game.

Graham Bishop

Finally, my first game as Captain of Gauteng Nomads under the belt. I would like to thank all the Gauteng members for electing me as Captain and assure all of you that I will continue the good work done by all my predecessors in running this great Club of ours. To my thirteen man and one woman committee, I thank you for giving of your time over the next 12 months. To all the Gauteng members who have phoned, emailed and congratulated me, I appreciate the support.

The year started with having to attend the Gauteng Ladies Golf prize giving in early May held at Randpark. Gauteng were responsible for sponsoring prizes as part of our continued support of the furtherance of golf in South Africa. There was a wonderful turnout at the event and it’s good to see that our funds are being appropriately spent. Congratulations to all the winners.

My first official game as Captain was played in Knysna. Gauteng had a rather disappointing six man contingent attending the Southern Cape 30th anniversary. The weekend started with a cocktail party at Knysna Golf Club on the Friday evening. Thanks to John Lees for organising everything and to David Meyer (Captain at Southern Cape) for all the effort in making the event a success. To two of our national sponsors, Tempest, for arranging free transport over the weekend and to Hollard (represented by Brian Algar) for reluctantly insuring the vehicle, their continued support of Nomads is appreciated. Saturday afternoon we played Knysna (home of the 2016 National Tournament) in a betterball format. I had the pleasure of playing with Flats Huisamen, the 2016 National Co-ordinator. We shared a cart so it was good to listen to how his plans and arrangements for Nationals were coming together. I can assure all of you that this will be one to attend. The course is a great layout, not long with excellent greens that run true and hold when you manage to hit one. There is no shortage of water, but most of which is easily avoided. The traditional Cowboy bar is situated next to the clubhouse on a wooden deck with a perfect view of the 18th green. The clubhouse has recently been upgraded and is ready to host us in 10 months. On Sunday morning we played at Plett in their monthly game. Another gem of a course that I had never played. As this was the traditional Nomads format it has been recorded as our first official away tours game. I managed to beat the other five Gauteng boys with a decent 33 points and Pat Frampton bringing up the rear with 22. Thanks to Sean, Nic, Les and Pat for attending the anniversary. A special thanks to Glen Dalton who also played and who hosted us at his guest house – Knysna Manor House – for the weekend. We have already booked the venue for 2016.

Off to Kyalami Country Club for the first game of the year. The field got off to a slow start with the Ladies taking a little longer than expected. We have been assured that next year our monthly game will not coincide with their morning field. I think the course was in great condition and if any environmentalist would like to know what is being done to stop global warming, they need look no further than the forest Kyalami have created. It was a pleasure to play with Andre Erasmus, the newly elected Captain at Kyalami, Darren Holm on his 100th game and a friend and prospective, Russell James. It was good to hear that it was Andre’s first encounter of Nomads and is considering membership.

It was my first prize giving and I was surprised at the amount of effort it takes to prepare for it. We continually hear that prize giving is too long. We put the prize giving on the stop watch and it took 38 minutes to get through the formalities, including fines master. The entire prize giving took 55 minutes to complete. I do not think that 55 minutes is that long, considering what is involved and the fact that we use this time to acknowledge all our national and local sponsors, to award badges and ties and to inform members of upcoming events. In a field of 124 we had a 20% non-attendance at prize giving. We are monitoring attendance and are aware of those that seldom attend – in saying that, the fact that you are reading this article probably means that it does not apply to you.

See you at the next game and prize giving.

Graham Bishop

Wow my last report, how time has flown by! It feels like yesterday that I was bumbling my way through the creed when I was JVC! I cannot believe my term as Captain is now over in what has been an amazing journey. I cannot tell you enough how proud I am to have lead this amazing club of ours. I would do it again in a heart beat! I would like to thank every single Nomad for all their contribution and support I have received during my term.

The long awaited return to Houghton was certainly worth the wait! The course is a true gem. It is a true test of golf which oozes with that Jack Nicklaus feel with the shape and positioning of the bunkers and the vast undulating greens. I am really pleased to tell you that it is on the roster next year and I am certainly looking forward to going back there in March.

A year ago I took a decision to drop our Krugersdorp game for Houghton. We had 101 players at Krugersdorp the previous year compared to the 136 at Houghton last month. The problem that we do encounter when we play at the more “prestigious or high end” clubs is that we made a loss of R2000 compared to the R8500 profit we made at Krugersdorp. We as a committee have to balance out the yearly games so that by the end of the year our club is pretty much breaking even. So although the members would love to play at the “better clubs” throughout the year this is unfortunately not possible. We still need to support the many smaller clubs who have supported Nomads throughout the years.

The 50th Nationals has come and gone, and what a fantastic event it was. The Gauteng boys really rallied as a team and the spirit was fantastic among the boys. Our Plus Four kit looked fantastic and we really stood out. In the next couple of weeks we will be putting out a 50th Nationals report together with some photos for you all to have a look at. All the boys that couldn’t make it, certainly missed out on an amazingly slick and organised event.

I would like to thank our starters, Barry Bruton, Andre Swanepoel and a special thank you to Hennie Ehlers, who is recovering from a knee op for helping out.

Last but not least, to our ladies Bev, Wilma and Roz, for helping out at the registration table. We really wouldn’t cope without all your help and effort you put in every month. We really, really do appreciate everything you do for us.

Adios, see you in the cheap seats next month!

Darren

Our annual game at Wanderers always proves to be popular, and it certainly didn’t disappoint as the greens and course were in great condition. The weather played its part this month and it turned out to be an absolute scorcher of a day. The ice cold sponsors brew certainly went down a treat on the 18th green. I had the pleasure of playing with Jim Hughes, a fellow Randpark member and friend, Paul Bolton and the ever chirpy Brian Bolton who was playing his 400th game. It was an especially proud moment for Paulie walking up the 18th with his “old man.” Congratulations Brian, it is always an honour to hand out these significant game badges.            

I would really like to thank Spero for stepping up to the plate to do the fines session. What a humorous fines session it was, hopefully Anton is not a Lions supporter and certainly hands you boys a few fines.

The twenty Gauteng boys that travelled to Easterns for the Captains Cup put up a massive fight in what was a really tight battle. We needed twenty points to retain the trophy but fell short by one, going down 21-19. There were four halved games on the Sunday afternoon singles, which just shows how close it was. The boys were so looking forward to the Sundays 36 holes that at least half the team didn’t get any sleep on the Saturday evening! A special thank you must go to Matty and the boys from Easterns for hosting us and organising a fantastic event. The spirit between the two clubs is something to behold. I cannot wait for next year’s event.           

The 50th Nationals is almost upon us, in what is going to be a fantastic event to be at Champagne Sports resort in the Drakensburg. We have a team of thirty seven participating. I wish you all the best of luck and enjoy the tournament in true Gauteng style. A quick thank you goes out to Sean Ledden for all your organisation.

Please remember to get your Gold Cup entries in early to avoid disappointment. The gold cup game is the flagship event on our calendar. Please go to the competition standings on our website to see if you are in the running. Remember the game is on Friday the 17th April.     

I would like to thank our starters, Barry Bruton and Steven Greasley. A special thank you to Hennie Ehlers, who is recovering from a knee op for helping out. As usual Tony Shaw, for doing starter duties.

Last but not least, to our ladies Bev, Wilma and Roz, for helping out at the registration table. We really wouldn’t cope without all your help and effort you put in every month. We really, really do appreciate everything you do for us.

Looking forward to seeing you all at Houghton Golf Club, on the 11th March.

Cheers,

Darren