All News - Page 44

Since the closure of Nad Al Sheba, many of our Society members have taken the option of joining the various seasonal, corporate and mid-week deals which have been promoted. As a result, the administration of handicaps has obviously been more difficult as the clubs, for these memberships, will generally not administer handicaps.

Therefore, the Committee have introduced a simple form of handicap administration based on a version of the the EGA rules:

For every shot over a stableford points system of 36 points, a players handicap will be cut in the following manner:

• H/cap 5 and below: 0.1 per point
• H/cap 6 to 17: 0.2 per point
• H/Cap 18 and above: 0.3 per point

For example, if a player of handicap 20 (exact: 20.0) scores 41 points, they will be cut (5 * 0.3 = 1.5) = 18.5. This equals a playing handicap of 19 (18.4 would indicate a playing handicap of 18). Note: where we have a medal format, scorecards will be converted into stableford points and adjusted accordingly. Also, there will be no increases in handicap - handicaps will only be cut (reduced) by the Society, not increased.

We recognise that these handicaps will not be official, but we also wish to ensure there is an even distribution of prizes during our calendar year. We will then review at the end of the year to see how successful it has been to achieve this objective and whether we continue doing this task.

For your information, we will initiate this system from our last event at Sharjah. Therefore, there were several handicap changes (a \"*\" represents a change in playing handicap):

1. Wayne Classen: 18.0 -> 15.9 (16)*
2. Wolf Lennert Didszuhn: 22.0 -> 21.7 (22)
3. Iain Lachlan: 5.0 -> 4.7 (5)
4. Craig McBride 11.0 -> 10.8 (11)
5. Dean Moss 15.0 -> 14.4 (14)*
6. Phil Stuckle 20.0 -> 19.4 (19)*
7. Donna Tapp: 36.0 -> 35.1 (35)*
8. Mike Woosley: 16.0 -> 15.6 (16)

If you are a member of a club and do get your handicap monitored on a regular basis, you should ensure that this is updated on the website.

For those who wish to take a more active role in administering their handicaps, there are excellent websites to do this:

(1) oobgolf (unofficial handicap tracker, but great statistics and community site)
(2) Today\'s Golfer (UK): official handicap tracker.

We have organised a \"Summer Series\" event which will be hosted by Four Season Golf Resort (Al Badia) and the prizes are being sponsored by Microsoft. Details are as follows:

• Each event is to be held at the Four Seasons Course (Al Badia) and will cost not more than AED 350 /- per person. (Note, only \"fully-paid\" members of the Society will be allowed to register for the events).
  

• Dates of the events are: (1) Friday 19th June, 0700 rolling start. (2) Saturday 25th July, 0700 rolling start. (3) Friday 25th September, 1230 rolling start.
  

• The series takes place over three events where the final winning score will be taken from the best two stableford scores over the three match series (i.e. the two best scorecards out of three count). If you only play in two events, then these two scores will count towards your total.
  

• Where there is a tie, the most recent scorecard will be taken; if this is the same then the best back 9 of the most recent card will be the deciding factor, and so on.
  

• Microsoft have provided some fantastic prizes: 3 Xboxs with the latest Tiger Woods game (2010) - this game is yet to be released to the general public. The prizes will be distributed between two categories: Cat 1 (Handicaps of 0 - 14) and Cat 2 (Handicaps of 15 and above). The third Xbox will be raffled at the presentation after the last match - raffle tickets for this will be sold at the prize ceremony. (Note: based on the high stableford scores at Sharjah we are reviewing the handicaps of Society members - watch this space for further details....)
  

• There will be small prizes given for winners of the individual events.

The first game of the Microsoft / Four Seasons Summer Series is now open for registration.

Shown below are the tee timings for the Society event on 8th May. Please note, any cancellations from now until the event will result in a cancellation charge of AED 450/.

Details:

Venue: Els Club
Date: Friday 8th May
Time: see below
Price: AED 260 for members; AED 360 for guests
Format: Individual Stableford

07:00	Iain Lachlan	Bob Everest	Nick Marriott	Colin Marriott (Guest)
07:12	Tim Collins	Dean Moss	Roger Duthie	Mike Belt (Guest)
07:24	Sandy Crawford	Tim Burnell	Dean Rainkie	Jeroen Van Cauwenberghe
07:36	Erwan Testard	John Wilby	Satwinder Sembi	Wayne Classen
07:48	Craig McBride	Mark Spicer	Pat Casserly	Colin Disspain
08:00	Ted Green	Kader Tazerout	Mike Woosley	Mike Renken
08:12	Tim Harford	Mazen Qursha	Eric Smith	Nick Jones
08:24	Phil Stuckle	Anthony Morgan (Guest)	Wolf Lennart Didszuhn	Michal Szalbot
08:36	Graeme Mowbray	David Williams	Ali Al Hussaini	Leo Fewtrell

Directions and location map to the Els Club are shown here.

We would like to inform you that Tower Links is offering members of the Emirates Golf Society a discount for golf played on a Saturday for the months of May and June. I have enclosed the email sent to me below for your perusal:

Dear Tim.

Tower Links Golf Club is offering a ‘Saturday Special’ for the months of April and May prior to our Summer Rate coming into effect on the 1^st June. During this period we are charging Society Members 300 Dirhams for 18 holes of golf inclusive of shared golf cart and range balls. I would really appreciate it if you could relay this information to all your Society Members so they can take full advantage of this deal.

Thank you for your help regarding this matter.

Yours sincerely.

Andy Stuart

Their website (and thus contact details and directions) are shown here.

We will be finalising numbers for the Cyprus trip scheduled for May 22/23 by tomorrow. Therefore, if you are not yet registered and you wish to go, please visit the website.

This final list of registrations will be sent to the hotel on 24th March. Please note that if you drop out after this time there is likely to be a cancellation fee from the hotel as we are blocking rooms.

To get you all in the mood for the trip, I noticed that in this weekend\'s Daily Telegraph newspaper, there was a glowing review of the Aphrodite Hills resort - check it out for yourself!

Congratulations go to Tim Burnell who won this weeks golf day at Arabian Ranches. He scored a fine 35 points, one point ahead of his playing partner Dean Moss. Third-place went to Tim Collins who beat off a host of players on 33 points on a countback. To top off a great day on the Desert course, the \"nearest-the-pin\" prizes went to Paul Nightingale and Tim Burnell (again!).

The Arabian Corporate Games are being held between April 8th and April 11th and the Emirates Group is actively participating. The games encompass several disciplines of which golf is one. Therefore, we would like to ascertain your interest in participating and representing the company\'s golf team at this event.

The golf event is being held over two days - on the 9th April, golfers will play Abu Dhabi and on 10th April, the venue will be the Emirates Golf Club. Participants will play both days. The price per player is AED 1300/-. (At this moment in time, based on the current cost climate, the cost will be borne by the individual). More details of the games can be seen on their website.

Please register your interest in the normal way here.

The next EGS Golf Day will be on Saturday 7th March at the Arabian Ranches. Please note that registrations are limited to 32 people. Full details below:

Date: Saturday, 7th March
Time: 1330 (shotgun)
Venue: Arabian Ranches
Price: TBA

Please register on the website if you are interested in playing.