Good morning ladies,

I hope you have the sunscreen to hand as I believe it will get up to 25 degrees in Dublin today!

I want to sincerely thank the ladies who held back from the timesheet last Thursday.   It afforded a more even spread of players across the timesheets over the last number of weeks.   After play this coming Saturday 27th June we will have completed both Phase1 and Phase2 of re-opening and out of 122 members 110 will have played as follows:

10 members – 6 times
22 members – 5 times
19 members – 4 times
25 members – 3 times
23 members – 2 times
11 members – 1 times

The very good news this week is that from the 4th July we will have 4 balls every 10 minutes, giving us capacity for 92 players, which is 1 slot short of the total slots we had available to us before Covid-19 arrived.   On that basis, I don’t envisage there being any issues getting onto the timesheet this evening nor will there be any need for me to continue to monitor player frequency.

Our start time is now 11.40 a.m. and finish time is 15.20 p.m.   While it has not been confirmed by the ILGU/GUI, Leopardstown are of the view that it will not revert to the 6 minute gap between teetimes so its possible these start and finish times will continue into the foreseeable future.

Competitions are permitted from the 29th June and Leopardstown have confirmed that there will be no official signing in.   Scorecards will be left at a table in the doorway beside the hand sanitiser.

It will not be necessary for cards to be exchanged between players or for the person who is the ‘marker’ to touch the player’s scorecard.   Instead, each player can mark up their own score and ask their marker to verbally certify the scores.   The player can then write the name of the marker on their scorecard.

All of the Saturday Societies intend to commence competitions from the 4th July and I am meeting the other Captains to discuss various logistics around returning scorecards (the normal box in reception area will not be in use), marking cards and re-scheduling the Calendar of Events for the duration of 2020.   I will provide further updates on this as soon as I can.

The Café is hoping to reopen the week of June 29th and it will be a very different set-up from previous times.   The offering will be reduced as will the seating capacity.   There will be extra seating available on the terrace when weather permits.  This will be a work in progress while Leopardstown tries to find the best way forward and they have asked for your patience and for you to follow all instructions provided onsite.

From 29th June visitors will be allowed to play golf in Leopardstown again.  They will have to book the same way that other society members have been doing in the afternoons, by providing names and phone numbers.   Priority will be given to society members when it comes to booking.   They will be permitted to book golf from Friday at 8 a.m. for the following week.   Visitors will not be permitted to book until the following day.

As expected, the Waiting List is working well.   Could I ask that anyone who needs to take their name off the timesheet after the booking system closes at 18:00 hrs on Friday, contact Leopardstown on the SATURDAY morning to do this.  If you contact them on Friday evening it is possible that they may not have received our timesheet yet and your cancellation may not be noted.  This did happen last week resulting in a vacant slot on one of the player lines.

Finally, based on feedback received could I give a gentle reminder that ‘fresh-air’ shots are counted as one of your shots.  Also, with the reduced 10 minutes tee-off times, please keep the players ahead of you in sight.   If you loose a ball you have a maximum of 3 minutes to search for it.  In most cases, if a ball is going to be found, it will be found within the first three minutes.

Please note that there is no golf on Saturday, 11th July due to racing.

Thank you all for your patience and good natured attitude to the ‘new way’ of managing our Society golf.   I hope you enjoy this Saturday and that the weather is kind to us.

Best wishes,

Paula,
Lady Captain 2020