Weekly Competition Results
Wednesday 10 January 2024 (IPS)
18 Holes Wednesday Competition
No Competition Took Place
Friday 12 January 2024 (Skins)
Amadeus Meat Competition
First Place – Gerhard Engelbrecht
Second place – Kallie van der Berg
Wednesday 17 January 2024 (IPS)
18 Holes Wednesday Competition
No Competition Took Place
Friday 19 January 2024 (IPS)
Amadeus Meat Competition
First Place – Gerald Storebeck
Second Place – Kevin Jordaan
Wednesday 24 January 2024 (IPS)
18 Holes Wednesday Competition
First Place – Gerald Storebeck
Second Place – Ray Lowe
Friday 26 January 2024 (Bonus Bogey)
Puma Energy Competition
First Place – Louwrens De Jager
Second Place – Bert van Rensburg
Wednesday 31 January 2024 (Medal)
KWV Thirsty Thousand
First Place – Mpho Molaba
Second Place – Johnny Barnard
Third Place – Petrus Du Plessis
Rule for the Month
“Rule 7. Ball search: Finding and Identifying Ball
Purpose of the rule: “Rule 7 allows you to take reasonable actions to fairly search for your ball in play after each stroke.
But you must be careful, as a penalty will apply if you act excessively and cause improvements to the conditions affecting your next stroke.
You get no penalty if your ball is accidentally moved in trying to find or identify it, but you must then replace the ball on its original spot.
7.1 How to fairly Search for Ball.
7.1a) You may take reasonable action to find and identify ball.
You may fairly search for the ball by taking reasonable action to find and identify it, such as
Moving sand and water, and
Moving or bending grass, bushes, tree branches and other growing or attached natural objects , and also breaking such objects, but only if breaking is a result of reasonable action taken to find or identify the ball.
If taking such reasonable action as part of a fair search improves the conditions affecting the troke there is no penalty. But if the improvement result from actions that exceeded what was reasonable for a fair search, you get the general penalty.
7.1b) What do you do if sand affecting lie of your ball is moved while trying to find or identify it.
You must re-create the original lie in the sand, but may leave a small part of the ball visible if the ball had been covered by sand.
If you play the ball without having re-created the original lie, you get the general penalty.
7.2 How to identify your ball.
You may identify your ball by seeing it come to rest or seeing your identifying mark on the ball.
7.3 Lifting your ball to identify it.
If a ball might be yours but you cannot identify it as it lies, you may lift the ball to identify it. But the spot of the ball must first be marked, and the ball must not be cleaned more then needed to identify it. (Except on the putting green).
If the lifted ball is your ball or another player’s ball, it must be replaced on its original spot.
If you lift your ball when not reasonably necessary to identify it, fail to mark the spot of the ball before lifting it or clean it when it is not allowed, you get one penalty stroke.
Penalty for playing incorrectly substituted ball or playing ball from a wrong place in breach of Rule 7.3: General Penalty.
7.4 Ball accidentally moved in trying to find or identify it.
There is no penalty if your ball is accidentally moved by you, your opponent or anyone else while trying to find or identify it.
If this happened, the ball must be replaced on its original spot (which if not known must be estimated). In doing so:
If the ball was on, under or against any immovable obstruction, integral object, boundary object or growing or attached natural object, the ball must be replaced on its original spot on, under or against such object.
If the ball was covered by sand, the original lie must be re-created, and the ball must be replaced in that lie. You may leave a small part of the ball visible if the ball has been covered by sand.
Penalty for breach of rule 7.4: General Penalty. ” Quoted from Rules of Golf.
HNA News
“Dear Golfer
It is that time each year, when we take a look back over the past 12 months, and share some interesting numbers and statistics about golf in the Southern Africa.
Number Of Golf Club Members?
The total number of golfers showed a - 0.05% year on year decrease from 153 083 in 2022 to 152 999 at the end of 2023.
This statistic is not only for South Africa, but also includes Namibia, Botswana, Eswatini, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Tanzania, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The numbers of junior and female golfers in South Africa showed continued growth, albeit not at the levels of 2022. However, if we compare this what is considered to be ‘good’ growth in economic terms, then these two categories performed well and were up 4.36% and 4.62% respectively – here’s hoping that our economy can show the same ‘vigour’ in 2024.
Total Number Of rounds?
Although no record-breaker, 2023 still saw a very respectable 4 175 266 rounds registered, 2.28% lower than 2022, which was a record year with a total of 4 272 560 rounds played.
The decline could possibly be attributed, in part, to the abnormal levels of rainfall in various parts of SA throughout the year, which caused courses to close, and some for extended periods of time.
Of all the scores entered in 2023, 9.57%, or 72 315, of these were hole-by-hole scores (compared to 9.8% in 2022).
The busiest month for golf was December, in which 393 922 scores were captured, which proves that vacations are as good a time as any to get out onto the links.
The three next busiest months were: January (382 710), March (381 654) and April (380 222).
The Busiest Golf Clubs?
There were 2 330 rounds separating the two busiest clubs in South Africa, both of which are 36 holes’ venues, namely Country Club Johannesburg and Randpark Club, with CCJ emerging as the busiest, with 73 245 rounds captured between visitors and members.
In the 18-hole-course category, Westlake Golf Club was the busiest club with 40 710 registered rounds, taking over pole position from Stellenbosch Golf Club, which was at number 1 last year.
The highest number of 9-hole rounds played during 2023, were at Somerset West Golf Club, with 8 436 ‘9-holers’ captured between visitors and members. Coming in a close second was Hermanus Golf Club with 7 687 9-hole-rounds.
Fancourt hosted the most handicapped visitor rounds at 19 017, with Royal Johannesburg taking second with 18 595 visitor rounds, followed by Sun City Golf Club with 17 188 visitor rounds.
Most number of members' handicap rounds were played at CCJ with 60 021.
A total of 114 clubs, of the 551 clubs on the system, had more visitors’ rounds than members’ rounds.
Which Platform Holds ‘The Torch’ For Most Submitted Scores?
The HNA mobile app once again was the go-to option for golfers to submit their scores, with a whopping 84.37% of all scores submitted via this medium.
The average handicap index for male golfers in 2023 was 15.4, while the average for women was 23.95.
Note: All figures are only for rounds that are registered on the HNA system.
Some Trivia To Close Off With!
The total distance walked by HNA’s golfers during 2023?
More than halfway round the World, which is a statistic that should make shoemakers everywhere smile from ear to ear.
We got to this number, by taking the estimated average length of a golf course (global average) at 6 750 yards, which converts to 6 172 metres. We then multiplied this figure by the number of rounds recorded by HNA in 2023, which was 4 200 000, and then took the almost 26 million metres, and converted these to 25 922 kilometres.
The number of lost golf balls?
It has been estimated that a golfer will lose at least 2 golf balls per round, so if you do the calculation, in ‘HNA land’, at least 8.4 million golf balls parted company with their owners, and now languish in bushes, streams, woods and deep rough everywhere!” Quoted from Handicap Africa Network
Quote for the Month
“Half of golf is fun, the other half is putting” Peter Dobereiner
