LETTER OF THE MONTH

NINE IS JUST FINE THANKS

With a typical round and post-round “debrief” taking five-six hours, ‘family friendly’ is not a phrase regularly used to describe golf. I’m passionate about golf, but have only managed a handful of competition rounds in the past few months. A busy job and four children make it hard for me to find the time.

Sure, I could probably duck out for a nine-hole social round, but the challenges of trying to improve my handicap and testing myself in a competitive environment would not be there. These things are largely what attracted me to this great game in the first place. So, despite my love of golf, I recently resigned myself to letting my membership lapse at the end of the financial year and racking my clubs for a number of years.

That was until my club, Royal Canberra, introduced a new initiative. A nine-hole competition to be held on a weekly basis, with the best scores of the week and the week’s winners being determined on the following Monday morning by our golf shop staff. To enter the competition, members must book in for a nine-hole social round, have a marker playing in the competition and submit their completed cards. A fee of half the usual 18-hole competition fee is payable to enter.

This initiative is an innovative way of encouraging a wider range of members to play competition golf more often. The initiative potentially has very broad appeal. For instance, it will attract time poor golfers like me, those who can’t easily physically manage 18-holes and those for whom two-three hours of golf is enough of a good thing. For me, it means that instead of looking to rack my clubs and join a gym or take up cycling, I am looking forward to ducking out for a ‘cheeky nine’ every week or so. Andrew Berger Campbell, ACT