October

It’s very early on Thursday morning and Carol and I are getting ready for Temecula away Trip. We are going to try a new course in Oceanside called Arrowwood, recommendation of Tim Yee. I will let you know how it turns out. For those of you that don’t know Tim he has a rule that any course that has the word Canyon, Lakes or Mountain is not for him so we will see (how about the word wood).

We have a newly crowned Club Champion, Ian McCutcheon. The competition was extremely close with Ian winning in a 2-hole sudden death playoff with a birdie on hole # 2 over Mel Collins. Rich Dennison will have the complete results in his news article.

We will be taking nominations from the floor this month to add to our slate of members interested in running for the Board of Directors. If you have some interest in becoming more active with the Club, check with me or talk to anyone of the current Board Members.

This month’s Tournament is the Dreaded Orange Ball, there are still a few openings, see Rich Dennison at the October meeting. The November Tournament is a new format this year, come to the October meeting and sign up your team.

The course is going to aerate the greens the first week of October and will be over seeding the second week, be prepared for some interesting putting.

The monthly meeting was held September 13, 2005 under the El Dorado Park Golf Course restaurant auxiliary tent. The restaurant provided a food selection of Italian food; meat lasagna, pasta Alfredo, Italian Sausage and salad for your $6 donation. President Tom Link called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. and led the membership in allegiance to our flag.

Past Presidents in attendance: Richard Scoville, Don Marmion, Mike Montgomery, Greg O’Brien, and Bob Livingstone.

Life members present were Tom Burris, Bob Livingstone, Fred Gibson, and Tom McCutcheon.

The Minutes and Treasurer’s report as printed in the newsletter were accepted.

Pres. Link brought to the attention of the Club that the Board of Directors is recommending we make Donna Yeager a member of our Club. She has been a big part of our Club, in helping at tournaments and the like, since her husband Chuck passed away several years ago. Donna is in the hospital at this time. Bob Livingstone made motion to make Donna a Club member; it was seconded, and unanimously approved.

Committee Reports: John Davis is the Saturday Captain and Terry Fulford is the Co-Captain this year. Practice rounds Oct. 22, 29, and Nov. 5. Sign up list is on the clipboard. 18.6 is the maximum handicap. Roger Scaife is the Thursday Captain this year. Roger noted that Costa Mesa didn’t want to play our Saturday team so followed suit on that for Thursday.

Golf Commission – Ray McElhenney: Ray is on The Hall Of Fame and Jr. Golf committees this year. There is a new website for the City of Long Beach that is noted on the Newsletter. You can go there to review and to make comments. One October 17 Cal Olsen is holding his 2^nd Annual tourney. All proceeds are to go to Jr. Golf. Bob Livingstone is also hosting a tourney this fall.

Jerry Leininger – Handicap: Jerry had nothing to discuss. No one had any questions.

Nick Zamora – Entertainment: The Weekender is fast approaching. The Friday format will be a better-ball blind draw for your partner at the end of the round. If you have any special request let him know right away. Saturday and Sunday will be shotgun starts. He is taking sign ups for SCGA Member course in November. Greg O’Brien reports that are over-seeding there now, it should be great.

Mel Collins - Rules: Hole-In-One rules will change in 2006. If you win a car your’ amateur status will no longer be changed to professional. Jim Fuchs asked if when the PGA suspends play if one is allowed to change clubs. Clubs can only be changed if it is damaged in the normal course of play while either in play or practice.

Rick Evans – Director: Tonight’s Putting Contest was “Aces-Only”. Ed Fernandez and Roger Scaife tied for the win, and received $33 each. August GOM awards went to Bob Forster for Gross (69) while Ken Louie and Mike Drew. Mike won the card-off (73-7=66).

El Do Supervisor Eddie stopped by to note they are to begin aerifying the first week of October and to start over-seeding the week after. Jon Monat asked about the green collars and the South end of the putting green. Tom Gleim asked about the yardage bushes being gone and being able to recognize the yardage. Eddie noted they plan to provide some sort of method for the visual identification.

Dennis Tramer – Director: The Flights / El Dorado Cup is on-going. If you need a person’s phone number give Dennis a call. The 9-hole tourney had 17 participants tonight; 3^rd thru 1^st were Chris Benes, John Davis, and Tony Jimenez.

Rich Dennison – Tournaments: This tournament will have a new manner of posting the scores. Just follow the direction and all will be fine. You will have 2 people on one card and 3 on another. We’ll play from split tees this weekend. Past President’s tourney is this Saturday as well. Groups will need to play in 5:00 to 5:15. There will be a Bar-B-Q and raffle following the tournament. We will have the Championship and 3 flights for the handicap groups. No questions followed. The Orange Ball is the October tourney. Be sure to complete your’ team sheet before coming to the sign up table.

Mike Montgomery – Past President: Announced the Board of Directors slate as presented to the membership. President – Rich Dennison, Vice President – Dennis Tramer and Jerry Leinginer, Treasurer – Al Ostberg and Brett Holloway, Secretary – Mike Vaughn, Directors – Terry Fulford, Doug Jones, Tom McCutcheon, and Rick Evans. Nominations from the floor are to be made and accepted at the October meeting. The elections will be held at the November meeting. The Christmas tourney will be changed to a meeting sign up this year instead of a mail in to draw more people to the November meeting.

Raffle tickets continued to be sold. Prizes included all the usual goodies, balls, hats, range cards, etc… Dennis Tramer drew the tickets from the drum, and Doug Jones called the numbers. Terry Fulford handed out the prizes

The membership drawing tonight was for $90. The number of Matt Taylor was drawn. Mike was not at the meeting. Next month the prize will increase to $100.

The September BBQ and Raffle was a success with Doug Jones and Dennis Tramer giving out $1,400 in Prizes and over $1,600 in cash. Thanks to all the Directors for their help and time, thanks to Mike Montgomery for his hard work at selling Raffle Tickets.

The new format we played seemed to have gone very well and I did not hear any negative response to the format. Thanks to all who participated and I hope you enjoyed the Tournament.

In the A Flight, we have as winners, the group who usually wins the gross, Mel Collins, Greg Lester, Kevin Orr and Doug Jones. The Blind draw helped!

A group who has not won in several years Rob Kuehn, Lance Lomax, Doug Lee, Dave Hasselman and yours truly Rich Dennison won the B Flight. How about that, even a blind squirrel finds an acorn sometimes.

Stan Farris, Bill Jackson, Gene Scott, Paul Djukich and Shaun Ferguson won the C Flight. This group likes the BBQ this is there second year in a row to win it with the low net of 187.

The Dreaded Orange Ball Tournament on October 15^th has only a few single openings left, call and get on the singles list. We just got a new batch of hard orange balls so there will be plenty to go around.

The November 12^th Tournament will be an Individual Nassau Tournaments be sure to come to the October 11 meeting to sign up as a group or an Individual. This will be a new Tournament; we will have a Gross Flight and Three Net Flights. I am going to pay front nine, back nine, and total.

December 18^th is our Shotgun Christmas Tournament it will cost $45 to walk and $58 to have a cart, This Year it is going to be different, you have to come to the November 8^th Meeting to vote and sign up as a 3-man team or a 6-some. It will be a lottery draw, I have space for 64, three man teams, and I will take singles to make up teams. Remember you have had to have played in at least three tournaments (at home or away) to play in it, so if you have only played in one or two tournaments, Oct. & Nov. are important.

Beginning Balance Checking Account			$ 12,877.18

DEPOSITS
Dues 2006	$ 10,320.00
Club Champ.	$ 3,825.00
Misc	$ 93.00
Sept. Raffle	$ 851.00
Orange Ball	$ 3,295.00
Checking Interest	$ 2.01
Weekender	$ 1,825.00
Sept Tourney	$ 5,165.00
50/50	$ 37.00

TOTAL CASH RECEIPTS	$ 25,413.01

SUBTOTAL			$ 38,290.19

DEBITS
Sept. Raffle		$ 1,587.64
Aug. Raffle		$ 307.28
Sept. Tourney		$ 8,275.50
Directors Meeting		$ 50.00
ISP Sept.		$ 15.00
SCGA Dues 2005		$ 100.00
Seaside Printing		$ 716.80
Los Altos Trophy		$ 62.50
Club Championship		$ 4,524.00
Weekender		$ 1,150.00
06 Team Play		$ 300.00
06 Postage & Misc		$ 120.00
Misc		$ 100.21
TOTAL CASH DISBURSEMENTS		$ 17,308.93
CHECKING ACCOUNT BALANCE			$ 20,981.26
CERTIFICATE of DEPOSIT			$ 6,325.85
TOTAL FUNDS			$ 27,307.11

I want to give a big “THANKS FOR COMING” to all who attended the Temecula Creek for the Weekender Tournament (September 30^th – October 2^nd). We had 33 two man teams which is the best turn-out in 10 years. We also had 12 ladies playing golf which was great. I think the shot gun format at 8:00 am was really good, because there was more time to swim, shop for more drinks or even play more golf.

A special thanks for all who helped keep the drinks cold, spread the food (the chili and cocktail wieners were a big hit), disperse the prize money, and clean up. I could not have done it without my fellow directors. They did a great job of picking up the score cards, posting the scores on our state-of-the-art score board, and figuring out the skin games. It was like a big happy family helping at a wedding.

In the midst of all this fun, we even had time to play some golf. There were two (2) hole in ones, one on Friday by me and one on Sunday by Bret Holloway. The weird thing was that they occurred on the same hole, #2 on the Creek. I am posting all the results on the internet, as well as, at the club. We paid out almost 50% of the field. Some people got real lucky.

We are already in the planning stage for next year. I hope we can make it even bigger. So for all those who attended, tell your friends and let’s keep this thing going strong. Thanks again to all.

November 6^th is our last away trip this year. We are going to the SCGA course in Rancho California. The cost is $75.00, we will be playing 3 Best Ball. We are almost full, see me at the meeting for available spots.

Well yet another month comes to a close. We just had our monthly meeting, and a few interesting topics come up. I will start with the every month statistics. For the month of August the rounds of golf were down 1.18% and the yearly totals were down by 12.58%. El Dorado for the month was down by 5.65%, and for the year we are still down by 17.77%. With that being said the revenue is fine. The earnings for the month were over 1.6 million, with 409 Grand going to the City. If you have forgotten or did not know, a surcharge has been in effect at Skylinks since its opening in October of 2004. That money has and will be set aside for the C.I.P. funds. To this point that account stands at $115,451 dollars. That surcharge will stop once the C.I.P. fund gets to the point were there is always at least a payment and a half available.

Our Junior Golf program is going strong. There are people on a waiting list. Their account stands at a little over 95 grand. No real projects going on at our course.

Linda Cook of the Ladies club asked American Golf to please keep an eye on the practice chipping area because it has become a bit over grown!!!

All of the Commissioners expressed some concern over the fact that we are still awaiting some details on the new and improved manuals. A draft is on its way to us for approval, but no real time frame was given??

The Cal Olson Tournament that did so very well last year, will in all likelihood be canceled. As of this letter there were only 3 foursomes signed up!!! So unless some unforeseeable turnaround happens, this event will be scrapped, at least for this year??!!

A request to install a GPS system on the carts at El Dorado has been sent to Phil Hester. I cannot foresee that being denied. That will mean a $1.00 per rider charge will go into effect once the system is installed. The USGA has decided that the GPS system can be used in tournaments like we have, if we so choose to use them during our events. That will go into effect January 2006.

Lastly we were informed that American Golf has requested from the City a 4% CPI increase. They can do this every year as per the agreements they have with the City of Long Beach. This will take effect October 15th, and will be posted by October 7th. So by the time most of you read this, the increase will have already gone into effect. Sorry for the late notice but we just found out ourselves. If we have already gotten agreements for our October event, the charges will not be affected. Well I guess that will do it for this time around. See you at our next meeting.