Dear Members,
There has been a lot going on at our club this year and even though much of it has already been published, I thought I would share with you a summary of the more significant happenings. I welcome your feedback.
New Maintenance Facility
Work on our new maintenance facility is progressing well and is on track for completion around August this year. Because we are on a flood plain the building has to be raised above ground and will be supported by some 64 screw piles. During their construction we discovered a few underground surprises (unknown pipes and wiring) which added a little time and money, but well within our contingency. Last week 48 truckloads of concrete arrived and the main floor slab of 200 cubic metres was poured. We are comfortable that the new facility will be within our budget of $3.5M, for which we have secured a bank loan which we plan to pay off over 15 years.
8th Tee Construction
Members may be aware that we solved the problem of severe bank erosion on the 8th Men’s tee by building a sandstone wall. In response to complaints from some of our neighbours, the Council ordered the Club to remove the sandstone and restore the bank to its former state. We appealed to no avail and then commenced Land & Environment Court proceedings. Last week, under the Chair of a Commissioner from the Land & Environment Court, we reached a compromise agreement with the Council, that will allow us to retain the sandstone, but we will have to move the front wall back four metres to allow an inter-tidal bank of vegetation at the water’s edge. This work will have to be done in the next six months. Whilst in agreement with Council, this is still pending L&E Court approval, which is expected.
Golf Course – Vegetation Management Plan – Bunker Review – Water Resources
The Vegetation Management Plan published last year is well underway and as the growing season ends we will renew the clearing of unwanted vegetation as per the plan. Clearing of silt and debris from our waterways remains our biggest and most expensive issue and we are exploring possible avenues for Government assistance.
With the completion of the refurbishment of our green side bunkers we have turned our attention to the fairway bunkers. Before we commit to a possible $300,000 program, we asked our consulting architect, Craig Parry, to do a fairway bunker review and his plan has just been published. Given the high demand for club resources, implementation of this plan will be done piecemeal as funds become available. Members feedback on this plan is very welcome.
Achieving water self sufficiency has long been a goal at Manly GC. Recently we have invested about $150K in seeking bore water from the Hawkesbury Sandstone Aquifer (some 100 – 200 metres below the course). Several bores were successful in finding good water flow, but poor water quality for which the cost of desalination would be excessive. We did find one bore with good quality water, but very low flow. When more funds are available we will try again in this area.
Golf Pro Shop
The fire in the golf bag storage and pro shop area forced us to rethink our Building Masterplan priorities. It had always been our plan to enlarge the pro shop and look at a relocation to the Western end of the building. We now have architectural plans for both East and West locations and these will be presented to the Board at the end of April. Both designs involve a small reduction in locker room space for either male or female locker rooms, which are presently only 40% utilised. Either way, a DA is required and thus the temporary Pro Shop is likely to remain for the rest of this year.
Playing Category Review
Last year the Board attempted to solve the anti-discrimination issue by changing some of the 5 Day male playing rights. This was not well received and the Board agreed to convene a Category Review Panel chaired by Vice President, Alison Andrews (7 Day) and comprising Bruce Phillips (7 day), Nick Debenham (7 Day), Phil Howard (7 Day), Brent Hedges (5 Day) and Denise Ford (5 Day). I also attended some of the meetings ex-officio. Three of the members had also served on previous review panels. The objective of the panel was to find the simplest, fairest and gender equal category structure and report to the Board by April 2023.
Based on member feedback from previous panel reviews, the Board felt that a solution could be found without the need for additional playing categories. Obviously the simplest solution would be a single member category, but the panel felt that the Club is not quite ready for that yet. Experience at other clubs has been that it created significant booking and financial issues. After a number of meetings the panel settled on a two major category structure that maintained the gender specific days of Tuesday and Wednesday and left all other days as gender neutral. The 7 Day playing rights would remain unchanged, but the 5 Day playing rights would effectively be 6 days, with a commensurate increase in subscription fees so as to address the concerns of the 7 day members as regards playing rights on a Wednesday.
This now means that 1150 playing members may book on Monday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday; 720 may book on Wednesday, 550 on Saturday and 350 on Tuesday for competition play. Only 7 day members may book for social play on Saturday and all other days are open to all categories for social play after the competition.
The Board endorsed the panel’s recommendation. Last year the Board was criticised for implementing the change without a trial. Mindful of that, the Board has announced that the new category structure will be trialled for three months commencing 1 May 2023. The Board and Panel will monitor the timesheet performance and member feedback during the trial and at the end will assess its suitability for implementation.
Here’s to good golf and friendship,
Jack
Jack Lutze
President, MGC
24 April 2023
