Seniors’ Section

Introduction

The Senior Section of the Chalgrave Manor Golf Club is a self-financing, self-regulating section of the club with a constitution and committee elected by the senior section members at the Seniors AGM.  All club members over the age of 55 may join.  Our aim is to enjoy friendly yet competitive golf.  Our notice board is in the locker room corridor.

Our official day is Tuesday when we meet around 8:00 am (no later than 8:15) for an 8:30 tee off (30 minutes later November to February).  We play a variety of games as selected by the Seniors’ Captain.  A random draw determines our playing partners and starting tee (we enjoy a multiple tee start that enables all members to be playing within 15 minutes). 

Every month we play a Seniors’ Monthly Medal competition, usually on the Tuesday after the Club hold their monthly medal.  These score cards go directly to the Club’s Handicapping Secretary to maintain our Club (CONGU) handicap.

All other games are played with our Seniors’ handicap.  New members with a club handicap are given an initial Seniors’ handicap of ¾ of their club handicap and this will adjust itself fairly quickly.   New members without a Club handicap will have their first three cards passed to the Club Handicapping Secretary to obtain a Club (CONGU) handicap.

In addition to Tuesdays, Seniors Section members are available for games most days of the week and these games should be arranged informally.

Other events

We play matches against the senior sections of a number of local clubs, both home and away.  Participation is open to all members providing they wear a Chalgrave Seniors’ shirt.  In addition, we have a number of “away days” where we play other courses, typically with coffee and bacon bap on arrival and lunch.  Our annual Captain’s Away Day is normally to a higher quality course and subsidised from Section funds (depending on Tuesday attendance).  Similarly, our annual dinner dance is also subsidised.

Funding

The section is funded by an annual registration fee, currently £5.00 and a game fee of £1.00 for each Tuesday game.  Other events, such as knockout competitions (these must not be played on Tuesdays) may incur a token fee.  Participation in inter-club matches costs £5.00 for home matches and £10.00 for away matches which part pays for home inter-club match coffees and lunches for us and our guests at home matches.

 

Seniors’ competitions and handicaps

Position

League

points

Handicap

reduction

1

10

1

2

8

0.8

3

7

0.7

4

6

0.6

5

5

0.5

6

4

0.4

7

3

0.3

8

2

0.2

9

1

0.1

 

We have two seasonal leagues; Summer League running from April to September and Winter League running from October to March with various trophies.  Most Tuesdays we play a league game of stroke play, stableford or bogey par formats that count for the league.  The top nine players receive league points and have their seniorshandicap reduced as shown in the table.

 

The Seniors handicaps of all other players are increased by 0.3 in the summer and 0.1 in winter unless they have the same score as the player in position 9 when they are deemed to be in the buffer zone and have no handicap adjustment.  Players with a score better than their handicap (less than 72 for stroke play, more than 36 points in stableford, etc) will have an additional handicap reduction as follows:

·        For handicaps up to 5.4 a cut of 0.1 for every shot under par.

·        For handicaps from 5.5 to 12.4 a cut of 0.2 for every shot under par.

·        For handicaps from 125 to 20.4 a cut of 0.3 for every shot under par.

·        For handicaps of 20.5 and above a cut of 0.4 for every shot under par.

When two or more players have the same score the order is decided by lowest handicap player first rather than the conventional count back system.  This is because we start from various tees and not all from the first tee.

Other league related competitions include a Scratch League and an eclectic competition. We also operate the McFadden Championship, a golfer-of-the-year style competition, which runs from October to September, and the Cox 70+ competition for the over seventies.

Occasionally the Captain will decide to hold a fun game that does not count for the league.  These include team games such as Texas Scramble and singles games such as Singapore Sling.

Note: an exceptionally good Tuesday score card will be passed to the Club handicapping secretary for consideration of a general play handicap adjustment.