Raffles Rag June 2019
“Now’s the time to wend awayyyy,
Until we meet again, some sunny day…”
Yes, the carnival is over, and what a successful one it was. Raffles Golf Club Golf Week has ended, and things are slowly getting back to normal. Both the Captain and President will comment further on the biggest event we have held so far, and feedback from all attendees is sought below also.
In all we played more than 1200 rounds, and over 140 Members participated, plus assorted partners, life coaches, sport psychologists, motivators and chi channellers.
Major Sponsors this year were Member Geoff Wighton’s NGS Crypto, Umberto Cadamuro’s Pacto, Nathan Ryan’s Bali Realty,Bali Garden Group (yet again!), and Kuta Heritage Hotel – without the generous assistance from these and a host of other sponsors, we could not have staged the event.
Feedback Time
Now, while it is fresh in your minds…
We are looking for a brief feedback from allparticipants in Golf Week. Every year, we look to improve on some things, introduce something new, and discard some things which did not meet expectations.
Please take the time to respond to just these four simple questions:
What do you think worked well this year, and Why?
What did not, and Why?
What would you like to see added?
What would you like to see removed, or changed.
That’s it. Please send your response to me at :
robgoodwin76@icloud.com.
One hint from those who know me. I have the attention span with emails of a Higgs Boson, which as you will no doubt be aware, is just
1.56 x 10-22seconds. You may want to make your responses succinct…
I won’t respond to you individually, but we will consider all your input.
Chairman’s Message
Dear Fellow Members,
Well, Golf Week is now behind us. It undoubtedly was the most successful Golf Week we have ever held. Our Club Championship was forced into two shotgun starts each day. Every event had record numbers of participants. Every aspect of the week was a success. Your Board of Management is delighted with the efficient manner in which it was both organised and conducted. There wasn’t even one hiccup that wasn’t quickly rectified.
I would like publicly to thank on behalf of all of us our organisers all of you who did such a great job. Leading from the front was our Club Captain Mike Barber who worked tirelessly both before and during Golf Week. He was very ably supported by the Club Administrator, Peter Manz. Peter was the pivot around which everything happened. Barry Lyon arranged most of our sponsorship and work tirelessly in doing so. He is a gem. Others who put in huge efforts included Tim Schramm and Tony Brandenburg. I cannot thank them enough. Once again, our Mr Wordsmith, Robbie Goodwin did a masterful job acting as the Master of Ceremonies. Thank you, Robbie. All of these hardworking people were supported by others. I thank all of them on your behalf.
Perhaps a major reason for the success of Golf Week was that during the 6-month period leading up to Golf Week we had three major innovations occur. The first was the appointment by Raffles Golf Club of Peter Manz as Club Administrator. Peter continued the work he has been doing for a number of years but was now able to do it with an official title and with authority. Peter has worked tirelessly in all our best interests.
The second was that we became the only Club in the world outside Australia to be affiliated with Golf WA and Gold Australia. With that came our obligations to comply with their high standards and codes of conduct which has already, in my opinion, caused us in our competitions to be better organised in terms of following the rules of golf and the conduct of our members. Our affiliation enabled us to get for all our members who didn’t have it, a GolfLink Card, which has enabled us to give our members an internationally recognised handicap which can be updated whenever a member plays a recognised game of golf with us.
The third reason is the Golf Genius licence which has enabled us to now have computerized scoring. This in turn has enabled us to tabulate results at the end of a game very quickly indeed without any long waiting period. Golf Genius automatically updates each player’s handicap by providing the information to GolfLink.
We have already commenced our planning for Golf Week next year. Bookings will probably open in the first week of February 2020. I strongly suggest that if you intend to register for the week to keep an eye open and be ready to book quickly or you may miss out. We as a Board are expecting an even larger participation by our members next year.
Finally, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that this year is Raffles 10thAnniversary year. It was founded on July 1st, 2009 at New Kuta. We have certainly grown since our very humble beginnings and we are about to advise of a Club celebratory event to mark this important anniversary. Details next month.
Yours in Golf
Robert Nelson
Club President.
Captain’s Corner
Same same , but different
The end of May is when most of us involved in the lead up to , and the actual running of Golf Week itself , get a chance to take a bit of a breather, reflect on the event just passed, and start to work on aspects we can improve on for GW’20.
The first week in GW’19 was much the same as in past seasons – characterised pretty much as a golf tour of Bali , playing all the courses in a not overly serious , but still competitive environment. The standout round was a lazy 46 points by Mal Kent at Handara which pretty much sealed the Golf Week trophy there and then.
Handara can be a little tricky to find – but you’d reckon a mother and son combination (who by the way , call Bali home) wouldn’t need 12 hours and 300kms to locate the course from Pecatu ! Fortunately they set off on their scenic jaunt the day before the first round.
Once all that was run and won the serious stuff began. In much calmer conditions than last year, the battle to be crowned Club Champion saw a dogged struggle in both the Men’s and Women’s competitions . Alan Legg managed to win a tight battle with Grant Roger to become our first back-to-back Men’s Champion , and firmly cement his place as the man to beat day-in, day-out at pretty much every Raffles event. Corinna Rudler was able to hold off Sue Hua in the Ladies division to claim her first Club Championship trophy.
Congrats to all the winners in all divisions throughout the entire 10 days , including the 3 eagles and a special mention to Chris Denholm for his Ace at the 8th hole at NKG !!!
This year saw a few significant changes from previous Golf Weeks. New major sponsors NGS Cryptojoined Bali Gardenas major contributors and Nathan Ryan, ably assisted by Barry Lyon , took the final event Ambrose to a completely new level. A big thank you to all our sponsors for their generosity and support.
The other significant change this year was the introduction of Golf Geniusas our on-course scoring system. Nearly everyone I spoke to gave this introduction the two thumbs up , so a big thanks to our Club Administrator Peter Manz for his foresight and determination to make this happen.
I received a lot of compliments on how the NKG course was set up for the two Club Championship rounds – Whilst naturally I happily accepted all the praise, the truth is most of that was handled by Jon Dean, so well done Jon. Finally a huge thanks to a few others who gave up a lot of their time to make sure the whole of Golf Week ran as smoothly as we could possibly manage – Tim Schramm , Alan and Karen Fennell in particular deserve a special thanks. The TOC (Tournament Organising Committee) members all put in more than their share of sweat and occassionally tears during the past 12 months – and we found a natural meet and greet host in Tony Brandenburg who also worked tirelessly.
Now to work on how we do it bigger and better for GW20………..
Good golfing
Mike Barber – Captain
News From The Board
Time to change our focus from GW 19 back to our normal charter – to manage and improve the “golfing experience” of our members.
Monthly Medal
Following on from our very successful first year of the Member’s Trophy Day, we will be making substantial changes to, and hopefully resultant improvements to, the Monthly Medal. Beginning with the July MM we, like most Golf Clubs, will be awarding oneMonthly Medal only, to the best nett score of the day – thus the award can be won by any player in the field, who can produce the necessary good play and consistency required of a stroke round.
The Trophy will be a substantial improvement on the current beer glasses, and the winner will be further rewarded by the winner’s prizemoney of Rp 1,000,000, and 12 points towards the Player of the Month award. Our Best Gross player will be rewarded by 3 points towards the Player of the Month Award plus any other points earned in the Nett Competition. Other placegetters, regardless of Grade, will be awarded points as per normal competition allocations.
Our 11 Monthly Medal winners will play off during Golf Week for the Trophy, and Title, of Medallist of the Year.
Par 5
We are looking to increase our “co-opetition” with Par 5 following the very successful final Golf Week Ambrose event sponsored by Bali Realty, in which a number of Par 5 teams participated. A couple of initiatives are being actively investigated, and we hope to have some positive conclusions to advise you all of very soon.
Quarterly Event
Captain Mike has expressed the desire for Raffles to participate in or host one major event each quarter, and again, some great initiatives have been proposed and actively discussed. More to follow…
Member’s Trophy Day
We hadn’t planned to hold an MTD in May, owing to the already full calendar of events of Golf Week ’19, however club stalwart and now-euphoric Liverpool fanatic John Smith stepped up to the plate with a fine bottle of Glenfiddich on Wednesday, May 22, and a big field of 40 players turned up to support John’s generosity, and to perhaps take home the prize.
That wily bottle, however, was not going to give itself up easily…
John and a cardboard silhouette of Paul Cochrane
Third time is a charm, and the worthy final winner was Geoff Wighton on 39 points, who was both a stayer and a Scotch drinker, so was rightfully delighted to accept John’s trophy. Well done to Ron,
Paul, and finally Geoff!
John with final winner Geoff Wighton, Paul Cochrane and a random photo-bomber
World Golf Rankings
MEN
WOMEN
Support one of our latest sponsors! Your GPS will find them on Jl Pangkung Sari in Seminyak or at info@settimocielobali.com. Tel 0812 3965 1326
