From the President

With just four months left in 2010, we are looking forward to our final golf events of the year. Our Turkey Trot, on November 15th, and our Holiday Tournament on December 13th. Sign up sheets will be posted on our Bulletin Board for these as the time nears. We would LOVE to see everyone there. Other important dates to note:

• October 11th – Shotgun, and general meeting. We will try the “Order Your Own Lunch” method which we did in August once again. The nominating Committee will present the 2011 Board at this meeting.


• November 15th - Turkey Trot shotgun and General Meeting. Election of the New Board to be voted on at this meeting.


• December 6th – Low Net Championship for those who are eligible.

In the meantime, we have some great OPEN time in September and October for our weekly games. This time of year usually has the best weather too, so I urge you to come out and play.

See you on the course.

Bernie Kurtz

Club Championship

Our Club Championship was held on August 2, 9 and 16th. Congratulations to Vicci Messer, our Club Champion for 2010. Great job Vicci, you put in three amazing days of fabulous golf.

Congratulations also to Cathy Gardner for Low Net over the field.

Click here for full results.

SLO County Woman's Golf Tournament

Chalk Mt. Ladies club is hosting the SLO County Woman's Golf Tournament November 4 and 5 (Thursday and Friday). This golf tournament is open to all women golfers with valid handicap. Players will be flighted by handicap and assigned tee times by handicap for round 1 so you will play will players of similar ability. The flights will pay equal gross and net so everyone has a chance to win. Cost to enter is $35.00 and includes prizes and lunch on Friday. Cart and Greens Fees are addtional. Entry forms are available at our course and are being accepted now. Next year, Dairy Creek Women’s Club will host this tournament. So please support this group so we can maintain this traditional tournament.

SUPER News

Josh Heptig is our superintendent for the County of San Luis Obispo. He has offered to contribute a regular column for our newlsetter.

What an abnormal, but great summer! We have experienced much lower than average temperatures, but it has not been disappointing to the turf care crew. The reduced temperatures helped us to reduce our need for hand watering greens and put more time into varying projects or emergencies on the golf course. This summer produced various irrigation leaks and surprises that required some problem solving and hard work. The staff that solved those problems and performed the hard work experienced many stressful situations, sleepless nights, and head scratching. These individuals really care about the type of conditions they provide to our customers and it causes them much grief when the results do not turn out the way we all hope. On a daily basis our staff puts in more than is required to turn out quality conditions that we can all be proud to play!

This summer we have been doing some things a bit differently by incorporating a regular grooming, verticutting, and topdressing program. This program entails vertically mowing our putting surfaces once every other week, grooming two times every week that we do not vertically mow, and topdressing every other week in conjunction with out vertical mowing.

What is vertical mowing you might ask? Vertical mowing produces the grooves in the greens turf that are about 3/8 of an inch apart across the entire surface. This is done with cutting units that consist of about 100 blades that resemble circular saw blades rotating perpendicular to the greens surface. These blades penetrate the crown (growing point) of the turf and get just below the soil. This part of the process helps remove thatch from the soil and allows vital gases in and out of the rootzone while also aiding in water penetration into the same area.

Grooming is very similar to verticutting, but it is much less aggressive. Grooming cutting units have miniature verticutting blades out in front of the mower blades. These grooming blades tickle the turf by penetrating the leaf canopy half-way and rotating again perpendicular to the surface of the turf. This effort thins the turf and stands it upright for a more even precise quality of cut by the mower blades.

Verticutting is followed by sand topdressing the following day. The topdressing works its way into the grooves cut into the soil where it helps build the soil structure into a more firm and smooth surface. The topdressing also helps create an environment to increase microbial activity to help degrade the thatch in the soil and extend the gas exchange into and out of the atmosphere like we discussed above. This ultimately results in a putting surface that produces a true ball roll, which we all can appreciate!

From the Handicap Chair

First of all, I would like to thank all the people who do their scorecards correctly each week. You make my job easier and I appreciate anyone who makes my job easier.

Secondly, here are a few simple pointers that you can follow to make sure you have done your scorecard correctly:

- Always do two cards: one for the tournament chair and one for the handicap chairperson. It is each player’s responsibility to make sure two cards are turned in.

- Write each player’s last name first and then first name on the scorecard.

- Always net out each player’s score.

- If your score has an adjustment, mark it big and plain.

- Check you addition.

- Make sure your scorecard is attested.

I will be gone from October 17 – November 17. Margaret Breen has agreed to do the renewals for 2011. Thank you Margaret.
Elaine Taylor

From the Tournament Chair

Congratulations to Cathy Gardner on her hole-in-one on Monday, Sept 20th. She did this on #18, the last hole of the day. Great way to end the game Cathy! Chris Poe, the 2011 president from Avila Beach Women's Club, spoke to us at our monthly board meeting on Sept 20th. She has invited our members to play in their guest day on November 9th (Tuesday). I will be posting a sign up sheet for those who would like to play- we are limited to 16 players so be sure to sign up as soon as you can. Chris said the cost of play will be $40, or less, if they can get us a deal. If this guest day is successful then we will invite them to Dairy Creek on one of our play days. It sounds like lots of fun and is a chance to get to know more of the ladies from Avila. FYI: Since Elaine Taylor and Susan Nail will be traveling in Europe in November, Marge McIntryre and I will be chairing the Turkey Trot. Elaine and Susan will be chairing the Christmas/Holiday tournament so please make note of this in your membership booklet. Low net for August was Ruth Nagano with a 62. Way to go Ruth! Paulette McCann

Rules

Rule 20-5

When a player hits her tee shot and it goes into a hazard, she may drop the ball between the hazard and the tee. If the player wants to hit the next shot between the tee and the hazard, she will drop the ball and hit from there. If the player wants to play the ball from the tee, she can play it from anywhere within the teeing ground and it may be teed.