News from Stowmarket Golf Centre

Community golf
Competitions & weekend social events

From March 2008 we are running events to promote a community feel in the golf centre. Our ambition is to make the centre as fun, sociable and relaxed as possible while giving everyone the chance to make new friends.

To enter the events you first have to play 9 holes 3 times and hand your cards in to reception, I will then award you a handicap. Your handicap is the average of your 3 rounds and will appear on the notice board inside reception. Please don't worry about your first handicap, my first ever round of golf took me 131 shots over 2 days!

To work out your handicap I add the three 9 hole scores together and divide them by three to get your average. Then I subtract the par of the course (29), this leaves the number of shots over the par for the course that you average and that becomes your first handicap.

To play in a competition you have to play with someone else who also has a 9 hole handicap, you pay a £1 entry fee (plus your greenfee if your not a member) and go round 18 holes (9 holes for under 16's). Remember your handicap is for 9 holes so if you're playing 18 holes its doubled.

We record your results like this: Actual score - handicap = net score 1st Ernie Els 92 - 46 = 46 2nd Luke Donald 76 - 26 = 50 3rd Vijay Singh 104 - 48 = 56 4th Tiger Woods 66 - 6 = 60 The lowest net score wins the event and prizes will be awarded to the top three in both the adults and juniors competition. The bottom half of the results sheet won't show any scores, all it will show is an alphabetic list of the other entrants. If you've had a bad day the last thing you want is for it to appear on the board.

I will lower your handicap if your net score is better than 29 reflecting your good play. At the end of the year all our winners will be invited to a pro's vs. amateurs match to crown the champion of champions. As we all get used to the format and numbers increase I will introduce different games, they may be pairs, alternative shots or cross country. It should be lots of fun and a great way to measure your progress.

We will also be running Saturday and Sunday social events.If you would like to meet new people or you don't have anyone to play competitions with then 10am on a competition weekend is "roll up" time. Anyone with a handicap can join and partners are randomly drawn from a hat. It's a nice way to have game of golf guaranteed. We play in groups of 2, 3 or 4 depending on the number of entrants. Anyone joining in with the Saturday and Sunday social can have 25 balls for the range free before they play so be there 30 minutes early to warm up.

Please get in touch with me if you have any questions, it appears a little complicated at first but once you have played a couple of times it will become really easy and a great way to play golf.