Wycombe Heights Newsletter Oct-Nov 2023

A NOTE FROM...

Chris Young General Manager

I can’t believe that we’re now into October already. This season has gone so fast. I hope you’ve all managed to enjoy some great golf over the summer months. Unfortunately, except for June, we haven’t really had the weather to call it a summer. It’s been a stark contrast to last year when the fairways were barren and dry going into winter. This year the course is looking in much better condition. With the Greenkeeping team also putting a lot of focus into the fairways and with the investment into extra irrigation they’ve been able to really improve the standards and looks of the course.

Thank you to all of you for your patience throughout the course maintenance week. We were quite aggressive over both courses to remove as much organic matter as possible and improve the drainage. This then supports the health of the plant and with limited fungicides to combat disease available, this becomes a critical process. In total, we have put 100 tonnes of sand into the greens, and you will see over the next few weeks there will be some more light dustings applied.

We will also be overseeding the greens in the next few days to try and improve the level of Bent grass and reduce the Poa Annua. Bent grass is often more disease tolerant and provides a better, smoother, and faster putting surface. Poa also requires much higher nutrient levels and plenty of water. Ultimately, we would like our greens to be less nutrient and water reliant which becomes more sustainable in future years, especially in hot summers. The reason for

overseeding is to try and speed up the growth and spread of the Bent grasses. Bent grasses are very slow spreading therefore to naturally increase the percentage in our greens would take a very long time.

Disease management is critical to the standard of our greens and the management of soil conditions to provide the best possible environment is a crucial part of the process. However, golfers play a huge part in this too.

One of the biggest impacts on greens from standard of roll to disease prevention is the repair and management of Pitch marks. I know this has been spoken about before but if we truly want our surfaces to remain as true as possible, we need to manage each other on pitch mark repairs. It is said that 90% of pitch marks aren’t repaired correctly or even at all. For every pitch mark not repaired correctly, it takes 3 weeks for that area of the green to recover. Every pitch mark left fills with water and eventually, the moist conditions become perfect for disease to take hold. We then walk this round on our shoes and spread it to other greens on the course. If members manage within their groups and if everyone repairs what they see, we eliminate this problem. I’m asking the wardens to really focus on this, especially with visitors and societies playing the course.

The last newsletter of the year will be produced in December. If any of you have any interesting content that you would like published, then please contact Henry or myself. This could be focused on your sections and maybe some of the key results that have been achieved over the golfing year. Any photos to support this would be great too. It would be certainly very Continued

interesting to publish some of the great results you achieve as a club.

Finally, some very good news. As you know since I joined last year, we have been talking about making improvements on the course. All of this requires significant investment and takes time to implement. We have made important steps over the last year with the introduction of the new tees, drainage, pathways etc. and in May this year, we completed the installation of the new irrigation system. We also now have a full complement of eight greenkeepers working on the course.

I’m pleased to announce that we have secured support and investment from BGL to work on improvements to our bunkers. This work will be starting soon and when I have finalised all the details, I will let you know. The works will be focused on addressing 17 of the bunkers on the course. 13 of which I class as unsuitable and unplayable at times as they have no liner that prevents flints and stones from coming through.

This work will impact golf to some extent, and I know we will have to make some bunkers GUR whilst work is going on. I’m extremely grateful to Burhill Golf and Leisure for their continued support and investment in Wycombe Heights. This is brilliant news and I look forward to sharing more details with you over the next couple of weeks.

Thank you Chris

GOLF SALES & MARKETING TEAM

Henry Willett Sales & Marketing Manager

Hello everyone, it’s almost Christmas! Well, not quite but it’s fast approaching. This year we hope you can celebrate the holiday season with us here at Wycombe Heights. At the time of writing our key dates are almost sold out so if you are interested in a table at our Christmas Party Nights or Christmas Tribute Nights, including Dirty Dancing vs Grease and Magic of Mowtown, please let me know!

While some of the club’s sections have their own Christmas lunches already booked in, we would love the chance to celebrate the holiday season with you and your family in December. Two or three course Christmas lunches are available every day and members receive a 10% discount on these and all of our Christmas packages! More information can be found in our brochure here https://shorturl.at/aCJ68 and physical copies can also be found in the Bar and Pro Shop.

Our last Christmas offering comes at the Driving Range. We have put a festive spin on our Driving Range packages giving you the option to bring friends or family to our heated VIP bays this December. Balls, clubs, drinks and festive food directly to the bay provide a great holiday treat whatever the weather brings this winter.

DRIVING RANGE UPDATE

Jack McDonagh Driving Range Manager

Members,

What a summer! It has been great seeing so many of you over the summer, enjoying all that Wycombe Heights has to offer! I personally have enjoyed getting more involved in golf this summer, and I have definitely caught the ‘golf bug’. I was really impressed to see how well our divisional teams have done this year in their local and national competitions, a huge well done to all of those involved in winning competitions!

I would like to thank the senior section for once again inviting me into your fantasy premier league division! Safe to say I have returned to the league with a point to prove, and it feels great sitting pretty top of the table as of writing this, although I see Paul Sadler is making a resurgence again so nervy times ahead!

We have had an extremely busy summer on the driving range, and it was brilliant to see so many of you using the range over the summer, with many of you bringing children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews and all sorts of family members. I hope your family members caught the golf bug just as I have!

Here in the Sales Office, we are finally welcoming a new Sales Executive, Torrie Meredith! Torrie joins us as a wedding and events planner and will bring a wealth of experience to our Office team. Please join us in congratulating Torrie on her new role and please say hello when you see her around the club.

Planning a celebration in 2024? Our function rooms are a great place to celebrate family birthdays, anniversaries and christenings. As a reminder, all members receive 25% off room hire so contact us today for a package.

We have a team working on the driving range who tirelessly strive to make sure the range is running as well as it can be, as you all know, through winter we have to adapt our opening hours, meaning we have to open later in the mornings to allow us to hand pick balls on the driving range to meet the demands of the business throughout the rest of the day. We will be looking to change opening hours during the week to 9 a.m. Tuesday-Sunday from 30th October 2023.

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The team begin work around 5:30 a.m. each morning and will hand-pick golf balls on the outfield in all weather conditions, whether it be pouring rain, freezing temperature or even snowfall. Unfortunately, we cannot have any machinery working on the outfield during winter months, therefore it is a necessity for us to move back open hours. Whilst I understand this isn’t ideal, I apologise and assure you we are looking into a better solution for winter going forward.

AN UPDATE FROM...

Duncan Purcell Head Professional

Welcome to winter golf everyone, where the light is starting to fade, and the mornings become a little crisper. We are fast approaching the end of our club matchplay competitions, so well done if you have made it this far.

I am hoping to see many of you practicing and fine-tuning your game on the floodlight range over the course of the winter months. We will continue to run ‘Members Night’ each Thursday night where you will be entitled to a free bucket of balls from 7 p.m. - close. Just bring your valid member’s card up to the driving range and speak to one of the team!

The weekend of September 9th and 10th saw the last major competition for the men’s section – The Robin Panter Cup. The course conditions were near perfection for the weekend, with 30+ degree heat and very little wind. A massive congratulations to Stuart Giddings and his team for the presentation of the golf course. I thought the greens were fast and true, with many of the members giving positive feedback. The winners were as follows:

Division 3 – Jay Singh Talwar

Division 2 – Paul Brain

Division 1 – Ben Moyle

Champion – Joe Butler

Thanks again for all your support, Jack

Congratulations to all our winners. Some outstanding golf all round, and a good score of 75 points overall from our champion. Well done, Joe! To all the competitors, the committee members who worked so hard in preparation for the event as well the F&B team for all their hard work on each of these days, thank you!

On Thursday, October 5th we have TaylorMade coming in for a fitting event. This runs from 2-6 p.m. and is by appointment only. Please contact the Professional Shop if you would like to book or have any enquiries. TaylorMade has just launched their new P790 iron as well as their new MG4 wedges so why not book in and treat yourself to the latest clubs on offer.

Retail Team Update

I am delighted to announce that Matt Hudson, our Retail Supervisor, has entered Year 1 of the PGA programme and is now a PGA Trainee as well as remaining our Retail Supervisor. I am thrilled for Matt as he has worked hard to get to this point so very well done!

Tom Millward has passed Year 1 of the PGA programme and now enters Year 2. Tom worked tirelessly throughout the year and has shown a strong passion and good knowledge within his lessons since starting to teach earlier in the year.

You may have also noticed two new faces in the Professional Shop, that of Michael Breith and Amelia Peck. Michael is a good golfer looking to forge a career in either golf or retail. Amelia has now left us for a few months to play professional cricket in New Zealand. I want to thank Amelia for her assistance the last few weeks and wish her all the best with her own sporting journey.

As we are entering the winter months, our shop will have sales on summer clothing and items. Please drop in or check us out on Facebook and Instagram to see our latest promotions.

In the October Half-Term, we have our final Junior Camp for the year. This runs Tuesday 24th – Thursday 26th October from 9 a.m. – 1 p.m. The cost of this is £42 per day or £106 for all three days. This covers all coaching, and parents/guardians are to provide a packed lunch each day for the junior in attendance. These lessons will be conducted by PGA Assistant Tom Millward. In addition to these camps, we host a junior roll-up lesson each Saturday from 11 a.m. –12 p.m. The cost of each session is £10 and is hosted by Tom.

While he is unable to teach just yet, Matt has undertaken a custom fitting course this summer. Both Matt and I are committed to providing our custom fitting service here at the centre. We custom fit all for TaylorMade and Ping clubs on our state-of-the-art TrackMan 4 launch monitor. Please contact the Professional Shop for any custom fitting.

We have had a few instances whereby we have informed members and guests of our dress code policy for the Main Course. This can be found on our website under the Golf Section. If anyone is unsure what we do and do not allow, please have a look.

COURSE UPDATE

Stuart Giddings Course Manager

We had a fantastic start to September with warm temperatures of 22+ degrees leaving perfect conditions for the Robin Panter two-day competition. These warm temperatures mean the greenkeeping team can get out there on all the cutting machines to get the course looking at its best and from all the feedback received I know everyone loved it too.

Finally, I have had a few occasions lately of finding people on the courses at times they should not be out there or with more people than were booked onto the tee sheet. Weekends especially, where members book three or four balls and only show up with one guest or member. Please be aware that we are monitoring these instances. These green fee slots are valuable to our business so anyone not booking in correctly would be liable to pay the extra green fees as they could potentially have been sold to visitors.

Thank you,

Duncan

Later in the month came renovations week which started on the September 11th. We partnered with a local contractor (Turf Tonics) and hollow-cored all the greens using 9mm tines to a depth of 50mm. We then collected all the cores which allowed us to top dress straight after followed by a drag brush and drag matt. This pushed all the sand into the holes on the green which was around 100 tonnes of topdressing sand over both courses. While we do understand it does cause disruption to the greens for a short period of time the long-term benefits are huge. It helps remove the organic matter in the greens and improve overall drainage. This also reduces the risk of disease.

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With the removal of many treatments available to us to combat disease, the soil condition and ability to drain freely are critical to better playing conditions. Thank you to everyone for their patience whilst we carried out this essential work.

The team have been working hard on improving the bunkers by stoning, weeding, and spraying off with total kill to reduce any further weeds growing in them. The sand levels have also been addressed with new sand added where required. This is one of the biggest issues we face when maintaining bunkers. An issue that is getting better but will always need close monitoring by myself and the team.

As most of you have seen we have been getting a lot of damage from our friendly neighbours the badgers and foxes. Their favourite holes to rip up the turf on at the moment are the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th,13th and 14th holes. This time of year, there is a lack of food for them so the easiest source of food for the badgers is grubs; they’re looking for chafer grubs and leather jackets. Chafer grubs and leather jackets live under the turf and eat at the grassroots; leather jackets come from crane flies (daddy long legs) and chafer grubs come from the chafer beetle. Due to the crane flies laying thousands of eggs into the soil at this time of year, we have a plan in place to spray a chemical which kills the baby larvae to reduce the chance of any future badger damage out on the course. Below are some pictures of the stages on which both grubs establish.

We have also been hit hard with dollar spot disease on a few of the tee boxes. What causes the dollar spot? It usually occurs in summer and autumn and is most active during periods of high humidity, warm days, and cool nights. Moisture from dew, light rain or irrigation and shade during the morning and lack of air movement (which means the turf stays moist for longer) encourage the development of the disease.

Low fertility and excessively low mowing heights can also increase the occurrence and severity of the disease. We will be spraying a fungicide to kill the disease followed by a high nitrogen slow-release fertiliser then top dress with seed to get the tees looking bright, vibrant, and healthy for the rest of this season and winter.

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Look

Best Regards

Stuart

F&B UPDATE

Sophie Owen Food & Beverage Manager

As the nights draw in faster, we are changing our opening hours to 6.30 a.m. – 8 p.m. We hope you have been enjoying our new winter and wine menu! We have brought back some members’ favourites such as the classic bangers and mash - be sure to check it out!

It’s feeling very autumnal and what better way to spend it than enjoying one of our fabulous Sunday roasts, using only the freshest seasonal veggies. Simply the best and what Sundays are all about! We guarantee you won’t be disappointed. For the cold morning ahead, we have introduced a new hot chocolate menu, full of delicious favourites available to takeaway too! We do hope you have been enjoying the variety of specials we have on offer daily. We are always open to hearing your suggestions, so please do let us know!

forward to seeing everyone out on the course.

F&B have been working towards our goal of promoting and committing to sustainability. We have been prioritising food sourcing, using eco-friendly processes, and reducing food waste. You may have also seen in the bar our labelled bins for general waste and recycling. We have also stopped using wooden stirrers, only using bamboo straws, and using suppliers that promote sustainability. Such as our soya milk, which uses organic beans grown from plantfriendly crops in Europe. I would be really interested in any feedback or ideas you all have too.

Food and Beverage Colleague Spotlight

We don’t often get to see the people behind the scenes. Harvey joined the Kitchen Brigade with Head Chef Gary, and Assistant Head Chef Adam just over seven months ago and has been relishing his role ever since.

If you haven’t already noticed, we introduced another summer ale earlier this year called Overthrow. However, stay tuned for the Rebellion and their Winter Roasted Nuts Festive Ale over the next few weeks. A deep ruby, complex flavoursome beer, packed with intense, distinctive malt and hop character.

What’s your role and hope long to have you been at Wycombe Heights?

I joined Wycombe Heights as Commis Chef in March this year.

In a few words describe your role. Learning, creativity and fun!

What is your favourite part?

I enjoy doing functions, they are a lot of fun! Working together with the kitchen team to make exciting dishes for all our members and guests.

What is your favourite meal from the menu?

I like it all, but my favourite has to be our special burger menu.

What are your plans for the future in BGL?

To work hard and learn from Gary to enable me to be the best chef I can be, to produce wonderful tasteful dishes for our members.

Best Regards, Sophie