More Winners!!

The Club has been a busy place the past few days and we have a few winners to acknowledge.

The 2nd Men's Night Shotgun of the season took place last night. Once again Carriage Auto (Geoff Mitchell) stepped forward and helped sponsor the Event. Guest Jack Owen of Outlook Eyewear also donated product for our Prize table.


The weather was outstanding and so was the winning score. A team lead by Peter Leaney with Mike McGarragle, David Cicchelli and his guest Ryan Caley had a score of 122.

 Second place went to Robert Campbell, Bill Harbaruk, Nick Desimini and Paul Cryne who fired a 127.
There was a 3 way tie for 3rd place with the Teams of Kevin Hughes, Moe Mallon, Jim Nye, Dave Walker and Larry Aicken, Kevin Ashe, Guest Jack Owen, Fred Calvert plus Doug Bruce, Craig Colquhoun, Paul Lacour and John Toman all recorded scores of 128.




Also taking place this week was the Annual Weekday Yellow Ball Tournament.
In this Better Ball Event each group is given a "yellow ball" and it is used by a different player on every hole. This may be the first year where all the teams finished with there yellow ball.

In the Yellow Ball event there was a 3 way tie with scores of 71.
Tie 1st
Kevin Hughes, Tom O'Connor, Greg Shea, John Carter
Steve Flude, Moe Mallon, Iain Bain, Ed Simmons
Robert Campbell, Ted Addie, Brian Murdoch, Wayne Wellman

In the Better Ball Event there was a 2 way tie for 1st place with a score of 54!
Luiz deCarvalho, Brian Sambleson, John Elia and Stan Steinwall
John Toman, Gary Reeves, Manny DaCosta and Peter Cant

Congratulations to all!

A career first!

Whitevale was well represented again this past weekend.
Lauren Bevan had a career round and captured her first tournament victory at the CJGA Junior Event at Deer Run Golf Club. Her 84 tied her for first spot in the girls 10 to 13 division and her par on the first playoff hole secured the victory.
Congratulations Lauren,  we hope it is the first of many!

Whitevale on Tour!

Whitevale has been well represented in a number of Events recently.

Mark Brewer finished 6th in the Ontario Mid Am Championship held at the Peterborough Golf Club.
Mark Burrell and Kevin Duda tied for 48th place.

Steve Rodriguez was tied for 3rd place in a recent Great Lakes Tour Event held at Heron Point Golf Club.

Congratulations to all!!

Mixed Haig Champs!

Saturday June 15th turned out to be a rare perfect day for golf! 58 players teed it up for the annual Mixed Haig which is always well attended. Veronica Raos-Dunn & Joe McGillion rallied back from a triple bogie on the first hole to win this year's event. They attributed their steller play to the extra "swing lube" consumed through out the round. Their net score of 60 edged out both the Bells and the Calders by a single shot. Finishing tied for 4th with Eddie "one hander lander" Griffin & Barb Rogers was the team of Mark Brewer & Michelle Miles with a score of 65.

Men's Member Guest

The Annual Men's Member Guest is one of the highlight of the Men's golf season.

This Main Event takes place on Friday July 12th with a shot gun start at 12:00.

Two fun optional events also take place for the Member Guest participates - a two man shoot out on Thursday afternoon and a 9 hole par 3 competition on Friday morning.

If you would like to add your name to the waiting list please sign up online or in the Pro Shop.

The waitlist players will be offered spots beginning June 18th to allow you time to arrange your guest.

For more details please check in the Pro Shop!

What's that line on the first green?

 

The mowers we use to cut greens here at Whitevale are a walk behind style that requires an operator to walk behind and steer the mower as it crosses over the green surface. There are larger ride on mowers that some clubs use to mow green, and each style have advantages and disadvantages over each other. The single largest advantage for me on using walkers over ride on mowers is the reduced potential for damage. The ride on style mowers we have all run hydrostatically, with pressurized oil turning the drive wheels and the mowers, as well as the lift lower mechanisms. When these mowers are performing with no problems they can be productive and deliver the high quality all of us expect. But when a problem arises, it can turn into a nightmare.

It is because of this potential nightmare scenario I prefer to keep these ride on triplexes off of our greens. Unfortunately, sometimes we have to use these mowers on our greens surfaces. Verti-cutting may be the best example of this requirement. We have no option but to use the triplex ride on units with verti-cutting heads when trying to complete this necessary cultural practice. Last week we were performing this verti-cut on our greens when the nightmare happened.  A hydraulic hose failed and hydraulic fluid began leaking out as it crossed the first green.

This damage is ugly to say the least. On a small positive note, as bad as it looks the green is still rolling as smooth as ever. So the damage is 99% aesthetics. And, luckily enough only one pass was made. It was over 20 years ago that I had an inexperienced operator mowing greens on a triplex and a hydraulic hose failed on the 3^rd green, and it was not noticed. Every green from the 3^rd to the 18^th green had lines all over them from each pass of the mower as it leaked hydraulic fluid.

 I have heard people suggest getting out soap and water in an attempt to wash this oil off the turf hoping to reduce the damage. But the actual damage is mainly from the extreme temperature of the oil burning the cells within the leaf that does the main and initial damage. It only takes a few short minutes of these machines running to cause the pressurized oil to become very hot. A very heavy spill can kill the crown as well as contaminate the soil.

This spill was, generally speaking, a light spill. We can see life in plants at the crown level so we are waiting patiently to see if the plants will grow out of the damage reducing the work we might otherwise have to invest to repair the damage. Over the next week or two we will see how well the recovery is coming along and can then determine if intervention with seeding or sodding is necessary.

You may have also noticed significant sand on some of the approaches over the weekend. Part of the USGA report last September highly recommended top dressing approaches, which is not something Whitevale has done in the past. We attempted to start this process last week only to get hit with some rain making all this sand wet. When the sand is wet we are unable to brush it into the canopy of the turf. With our maintenance day tomorrow morning one of the many jobs scheduled is to continue the top dressing of approaches. If the weather cooperates we should have the sand brushed in ahead of play, so most members will not notice the sand on our approaches.

The Phantom Event ends in a Tie!

The Annual Pro Shop Phantom event was held on Saturday June 1st. The format is a quota scoring system where the Teams are not aware of which players will count on certain holes until after the round. The field of 14 Teams battled the changing weather conditions and after all was "said and done" - We had a TIE!

The team of Gerry Dineen, Bryce Percy, Mike Mahon and Brian Jesty were deadlocked with the team of John Trimble, Ophir Zaldof, Grant Barrett and Padraig Darby. Both teams had Team Quotas of 91 points.

Second place went to the couples team of Ed and Ann Griffin and Wade and Kandice Brackenbury who had 88 quota points. Third place was captured by the squad of Nello Mariani, Mike Berry, Ross Pestell and Joe Dotchin who had 86 quota points.

Don't forget to sign up for the Mixed Haig coming up on Saturday June 15th.