A whole week without an irrigation blowout dare I speak too soon?  We did have a leak on a town water line to one of the bubblers but that was quite minor so very happy indeed.  All is still dry and humming in the pump shed which is also very relieving.

Not much else to report on the courses this week with a fairly busy time prepping for the first two rounds of the Ladies Champs and dealing with lots of play.  A dual public holiday for Brisbane and the Gold Coast today certainly saw some players arrive.  Some mid-20's temperatures this week as well but no sun yet reaching the shaded tees but hopefully some warmth.  I haven't peeked under the covers on the tees as yet and they will probably stay on until late next week.  The cancellation of the NSW Open qualifying event, whilst disapointing, also took a lot of back tee play pressure off the tees which with Club 4somes and champs plus the Twin Towns Open will be quite intense over the coming month.

What did happen this week was that this blog turned ten years old.  So over the past ten years there have been 469 posts made on the blog to inform members of what is happening on the courses and I trust it has been an informative journey.  It isn't always easy coming up with some pertinent text every week but I think it has been worth the trip to be able to inform members of what is happening on and sometimes off the courses and in the maintenance shed.  Upon flicking back through some of the posts the weather seems to be the dominant subject throughout, which is quite understandable as it is the greatest influencing factor on the game of golf. 

Prior to the blog there was a bi- weekly email newsletter that went out to members that started in July 2006.  There was a section of that one pager that was devoted to "course matters" so members of Cool Tweed have indeed been spoiled with the information they receive from the course as I don't know of any other club that has had such a regular update from the Course Superintendent, particularly for fourteen years.

It's been an amazing ride and I well remember that first newsletter which was born from a conference I attended in 2006 where the presenter encouraged us to "use the internet to communicate with your members"!!  My now wife Michelle was Golf and Functions Manager at the time so we decided to put a newsletter together.  You must remember that that was in the day when people were very cautious in giving out their email address and bulk emails were unheard of.  But we put a sign on the bar and got 24 members signed up so we added our own and some other colleagues and staff (and family!) and the first one went out to 50 addresses with  three simple rules that there was to be no advertising, it would only ever be one page and there would be a section called "course matters" in each issue.  To our amazement the next morning we had over 20 replies saying it was the best thing the club had ever done and so the ride began.  Pretty much the only negative comment came one time when we put a 3mb photo in it and it took  "too long to download" which was of course back in the dial up speed days!!  Circulation finished up at 1100 addresses after four years and then with all the positive response to the course matters section, the blog was born.

 

The first newsletter in 2006

The blogs popularity grew quite quickly and by late 2011 the blog was getting around 65 hits a day.  Early days publication timing was a bit spasmodic but then I settled in to a routine of posting on Friday afternoons at the end of the week and the blog now averages around 100 hits per day and on Friday / Saturday that number regularly exceeds 500 so it reaches far and wide.  So much so that in the past week there have been 38 page views from Ukraine and 22 from Russia!!  Some of the highest page view numbers came when Cyclone Debbie slammed on to the coast in 2017 and earlier this year in February when we recorded nearly one metre of rain.

WEATHER on the blog.  2017 Cyclone Debbie this time.