Some Much Needed Rain!

I spend most of the winter telling you all how much we need it to stop raining - therefore it has been quite surprising that over the last 6 months I have spent most of my time thinking how nice it would be to have some! Well, it's finally arrived, and it looks like there is plenty more on the way.

Hopefully enough to soften the course a bit, but not too much to have a negative effect. It will be great to get things a bit greened up ready for the busy September we have lined up with a Pro Am, a Men's Invitation Day, Ladies Autumn Meeting and a Captain's Charity Day - all of which are virtually sold out. Than youk for your support.

We also have the Men's Dinner on 19th September - less than a handful of seats left - let me know asap if you want one.

Please save the date for our Casino Night on Saturday October 25th - more details to follow with tickets going on sale next week. The last one we had was great fun.

A new star at the club

A fantastic achievement this week for James Cockburn, who won the Sussex U14 Championship nett prize. At only 12 years old, James has been getting steadily improving this year, going to James' camps, working on his putting and short game, and all this paid off in style with this great win. A fantastic achievement and a very promising golfer.

Piltdown had seven players out of 38 in this Championship, which speaks volumes about the health of our Junior section. In the gross event, Sophie Jones came 3rd during what was a fabulous week for her: see below...

Junior Championship

What a season Sophie is having! Last weekend, she won the Junior Championship, making history as the first girl to win it in the history of the Club. Sophie also won the John Amos Cup for her afternoon round of 41 points.

She was level par for the 36 holes (74 from red tees in the morning and 70 from blues in the afternoon). What a great performance.

Not only that: after fabulous performances in the Bronte Law Junior series at Cumberwell and the Ferndown Junior Open this week, she is now playing off 1.5. Quite remarkable!

Ladies' Open

Our very popular Ladies' Open went very well this week. As ever, very many thanks to all the helpers out on the course for making this a great success year after year. As the Top 100 reviewer compared us favourably to Hankley Common last week, I thought I'd share this bit of spontaneous feedback from a Hankley Common member who played:

I just wanted to thank everyone involved, for a wonderful day at your Open today. Piltdown is such a special place & the golf course is firmly in my Top 5!
But it isn’t just about the golf - it is the whole package! We were looked after so well - by such charming members and staff. The halfway hut was wonderful, and lunch was DELICIOUS!
Please can you pass on my thanks to the Lady Captain for a beautifully organised day - no wonder the event is so popular!
Very many thanks & I look forward to next year!
Dianne Morgans (Hankley Common)

Murrant Trophy

A fabulous weekend of weather greeted the players for this 36 hole event last weekend, and there was some great golf played.

On Day 1 we had Alasdair Smith leading the way with 40 points, closely followed by Simon Heather, Steve Walker & Charlie Hartridge with 39, and four more players with 38.

Always tricky to sleep on the lead, but Alasdair came out for day 2 and put up a very respectable 36 points. (Congratulations to Kevin Hampton whose 41 was clearly the best score of Day 2)

This gave Alasdair a total of 76 points. As one of the early starters he had to sit and watch as all the challengers came and went. Stuart Allan added a 39 to his 36 to fall one short, and then Charlie Hartridge added a 36 to his 39 to also come up just one short. Derek Elphick finished 4th overall (38 and 36 for 74) to take the lead in the Order of Merit.

Well played Alasdair - clearly the man in form at the moment!

Course update

Whenever Course Maintenance is carried out, we tend to lose some of the definition on the course. This is due to all the staff being deployed to the maintenance work and some of the regular cutting is missed for a week or two.

We are now out re-defining the course with lots of cutting, and with the rain we are now getting, this is even more important as everything starts to grow.

You probably didn't realise - but just to cut the semi-rough at Piltdown is one person on a mower for a whole week. The tees look so much better since we started hand mowing them a few years ago - but again that takes 2 people a whole morning, and it needs to be done at least twice a week at the moment. Greens are cut every day, approaches and surrounds nearly every day. We also have someone on the fairway mower virtually all the time to create the definition required.

It's a big task to get all this done, and also keep on top of some of the other work we need to do. I am pleased that we have been able to get the one ton digger back out this week and get back on to the painstaking task of pulling weeds and saplings out of the heather. This will be a priority area over the autumn/winter.

As I look out of my window it is great to see the definition back on the first hole, and those of you playing over the weekend are in for a treat (as long as you can dodge the rain clouds!)

Phil Bonsall
On Behalf of the Green Team

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