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Club news

From Luke Welham, Golf Operations Manager: At long last we have had some great news and we can begin to focus on opening on March 29th. 

Booking will be available to all Members within their current booking times meaning 7-day and Corporate Members on GG membership can book from March 8th. 

Flexible and 5-day Members can book from March 15th; 25-34 year-old Intermediate Members can book from March 19th and 18-24 year-old Intermediates can book from March 22nd.

If you would like to change your category to receive longer lead booking times please contact us in the office.

The steps and dates as set out by the government are as follows:

  • March 29: The golf club reopens for four-balls and takeaway food and drink;
  • April 12th: Outdoor hospitality opens for groups up to six people on the patio and outdoor area;
  • May 17th: The clubhouse opens for indoor hospitality for up to six people, 30-person outdoor hospitality and events can start to take place (with limited numbers);
  • June 21st: All areas open without restrictions and large events can take place with no limitations.

Please note that these dates are based on the government guidelines and may change.

During the lockdown there have been two main areas of focus in the improvement of the Club. The first is the drainage project on the two courses and the second is the renovation of the clubhouse.

The clubhouse has progressed well through lockdown and completion is scheduled for March 17th. The pictures above were taken on February 20th and, as you can see, all the structural work and lighting has now been completed and the main focus now is on the interior design.

As you will have seen from the artist’s impression in the December newsletter, the bar and golf check-in areas will allow customers to have several points of sale. You will also notice a dramatic improvement in lighting inside the clubhouse, which will match the energetic environment we hope to promote at the Club in 2021.

Although we will be unable to welcome Members into the clubhouse until COVID restrictions are eased, the team at Sherfield are excited to be part of this massive improvement programme after more than a decade of little investment. We can’t wait to see you in the clubhouse, enjoying the new space, and hearing how many birdie putts you missed in the near future!

Charity news

Members will be delighted to learn that a ladies golfing event, organised by Sheila Garfoot last October, has raised £2,399 for charity Limbcare, which helps amputees maintain their independence in society. Limbcare Chairman Ray Edwards MBE has written to express the charity’s “sincere gratitude” for the magnificent donation.

The Race to Le Touquet

This year we will be running our first “The Race to Le Touquet” where the winners of each section (Men’s and Ladies) receive an invite to Le Touquet at the end of September to play in the Singha Champion of Champions Finals. This is for the winners of each club’s order of merit. The format of each club’s qualifying events is:

  • Both Men’s and Ladies’ events are played on the same day.
  • Winners of each event at the Club receive prizes supplied by Singha.
  • Points are allocated based on where each Member finishes in each event. 
  • The number of points rises for each event as the season progresses.
  • There are six events between April and September.
  • The trip to Le Touquet includes travel, hotels (The 5-star Westminster Hotel), three rounds of golf (Le Touquet and Hardelot), an opening cocktail party, and closing presentation banquet.
  • The finalists receive not only the trip but clothing and finalist prizes. The winners of the champions of champions wins an invite to Thailand courtesy of Singha to play golf and entry into an Asia Pro Tour Pro-Am.
  • Both trips include, travel, golf and accommodation courtesy of Get Golfing and Singha.  

Historically, Club competitions take place on weekends so that all the different sections — Mens, Ladies and Seniors as well as our 7-day Members who are still working — can join in the fun. Five-day Members are also welcome to play but will have to pay the price of a Member guest green fee.  

Both the Men’s and Ladies competitions take place on the same day with the tee sheet interwoven. This will be followed by a fun prize giving and some special offerings from the kitchen and bar to help bring the day to a close. We would also  encourage Members to invite their partners, who perhaps don’t play, to come along and join in the post-golf fun.

The events are as follows:

  • Saturday, April 17th: The Saturday League
  • Saturday, May 8th: The Greenkeepers Cup
  • Monday, May 31st (Bank holiday): Midweek Stableford
  • Saturday, June 19th: The Saturday League
  • Saturday, July3rd: The Saturday League
  • Saturday, July 24th: Club Championship Day 1 (Net)
  • Sunday, July 25th: Club Championship Day 2 (Net)

Members will also have the opportunity to travel as a team to play at Le Touquet against the other Get Golfing Clubs. We will provide further details of this in due course. 

Subscription news

From Edward Richardson, CEO, Get Golfing: As promised in our email back in January, anyone who has continued to stay with us and pay their membership will receive a credit on their subscription for the period of March 1st to March 28th. 

For a full Member, for example, the way this will work is as follows: When your membership comes up for renewal, you will receive a credit equal to the number of days that we are closed in March. This will be calculated by dividing the annual subscription by 365 days and then multiplying it by the number of days we were closed from March 1st. 

This credit will then be placed on your account when you renew and will be used to reduce your monthly direct debits over the next 12 months.

To help us manage this process, it would be greatly appreciated if Members did not pay their subscription all in advance.

Thank you to everyone who has continued to support the Club, we are doing all we can to ensure you have a wonderful Club and course to come back to and one that continues to improve over the coming years. 

PowaKaddy offer 

As we approach the new season, we will be replacing our rental trolleys and we would like to offer our members first refusal on our PowaKaddy rental trolleys from 2020, at a special rate of £350. This includes the frame and a 36-hole lithium battery. They were purchased in July 2020 and are in excellent condition. If you are interested, please email [email protected]

Pro shop

Late last year we said that Get Golfing was developing an online replacement to the traditional, club-based pro shop to give Members access to a truly comprehensive range of golf equipment at very keen prices.

From early April, the Get Golfing Pro Shop will be open for business. As you will see from the spread of logos below, we have secured deals with a terrific range of suppliers.

Get Golfing shop brands

We will still sell the day-to-day consumables — such as balls, tees and gloves — on site but, in addition, we will now be able to offer you a wider range of products: from golf clubs, bags, shoes and clothing to lasers, logoed apparel and electric trolleys. 

Practically anything you can buy online will be available from our shop.  

The shop is connected to your Club Card, ensuring you receive the appropriate discounts in line with your membership, which are as follows:

Membership Discounts

The prices shown on the website for each item include your relevant discount. Practically all products offered receive a discount but there are some items where margins are so tight that we may not be able to give the full discount. Do not despair, however, as we are also committed to offering a price-match guarantee — so if the product is not shown or is shown at a price higher than you have seen elsewhere, call us and we will do our best to match or better it. 

One of the significant benefits, apart from pricing, of our website is that we do not charge shipping on any product. Orders received by midnight on a Sunday will be at the Club ready for collection by the following Thursday. 

All items purchased are paid for through your Club Card, so all you have to do is make sure you have sufficient credit on your card via our simple online top-up facility (which can be done at the time of purchase).    

As we know, your Club has had a challenging time with Covid and lockdowns, so please try to support us by using this service and we will use the profits from your purchases to invest in the Club.

Course news

From Ross Cook, Courses Manager: Although it will come as little comfort to Members, the golf courses have benefited greatly from the latest enforced closure as it has allowed grass to reappear in the worn and muddy areas that had been suffering from the winter conditions. 

As you will all appreciate, the weather has continued to be terrible, with some 130mm of rain having fallen in the last six weeks. In reality, even without lockdown, I estimate that in the last few months the courses would have been shut for about 75% of the time due to saturated ground. 

The long-range forecast for the end of February and into March is promising though. We are planning to get the majority of our greens and tees maintenance completed by mid-March in time for the return of golf. With luck, there will be no further disruption to the courses when they reopen. 

The plan for greens maintenance is a 10mm scarification, a 2mm verticut, a 6mm hollow core, followed by a lot of sand and sarrell rolling. Tees will be scarified down to 25mm then topdressed. 

If the forecast is correct then we will be able to bring in all the rope and posts and cut all surfaces in time for the reopening. However, if the wet and mild trend continues, there will be certain areas where we just won’t be able to use the machines — hopefully that won’t be the case! 

During this recent lockdown we have begun to reinstate the vast ditch network across both courses. This will be an ongoing process throughout the year. So far we have cleared out the following ditches:

  • In front of the 1st Waterloo tee all the way along to the woods on 18th Waterloo;
  • 18th tee along to half way up the 2nd Waterloo; 
  • In front of the 4th green Waterloo all the way out to the road;
  • To the right of the walk-off path from the 4th green Waterloo. This has also been extended 25 yards to allow further drainage to be added into it later;
  • In front of the 10th tees on the Waterloo, all the way to the 16th green; 
  • Along the path on the right hand side of 10th Waterloo starting in front of the red tee & continuing to the 150-yard post;
  • Reinstated an overflow pipe to the pond on 16th Waterloo the prevent it bursting its banks again;
  • The ditch on the lane that runs from the 17th/18th crossing on Waterloo all the way up to the bend, which takes you to the rear of the 5th green.

Once our maintenance has been completed we will continue with the ditch work, the next area will be 17th Waterloo in front of the tees and to the right of the path alongside the tees. This ditch will also be extended around 30 yards to help prevent the path from flooding. 

The only other areas left to do on Waterloo will be 12th tees, 13th tees, 13th green and 15th green, as these areas are fairly small they won’t take long to complete but they are on the wettest area of the golf course so will be planned alongside favourable weather. 

Along with ditch work, we have managed to complete around 60% of the tree work to the right hand side of the 10th Waterloo fairway. This may be as far as we get this year but again it is all dependent on the weather and the date set for reopening.

Pro news

We would like to welcome a new professional at Sherfield Oaks in Dan Kean, who is here to help you with your game once you return to the Club. He qualified as a PGA professional in 2014 and is an ex-tour player with worldwide experience of the game. 

Dan believes anyone can learn to play and enjoy golf and is offering a fantastic 50% off lessons in the month of April! Contact him via his website and use the discount code section — SO01 — to claim your 50% off (any issues and Dan will sort manually). You can also call him via 07826718810 and sign up to his mailing list for more offers here.

Staff news

Get Golfing Apprenticeships: Despite the day-to-day challenges thrown up by Covid and the lockdowns over the past 12 months, you may be interested to learn that Get Golfing has been working to put together a personal development programme for staff. 

This includes engaging with the government’s Kickstart programme to help individuals aged between 18 and 25 to get a foot on the career ladder. 

We will be looking to hire between three to five staff on a six-month contract through this programme to help us on the course and in the clubhouse. 

The goal is to help some of these individuals find long-term jobs and careers within the golf and food and beverage industry and to that end we will also be introducing apprenticeships towards the end of the year. Hopefully some of the Kickstart candidates from earlier in the year will progress onto these apprenticeships.

Get Golfing Internships: Finally, the condition of our golf courses is paramount to benchmarking Get Golfing’s progress and critical to our delivery of that goal is the motivation, education and professionalism of our green staff. 

To encourage their career development, we have launched an internship programme with Pelican’s Nest Golf Club, near Tampa in Florida. Four staff from across our group will benefit from a three-month training and life experience programme with the highly experienced management of this 36-hole, Fazio-designed private Members’ club. Get Golfing will pay all their travel, accommodation and wages during their internship. Applications from staff will be assessed during the third quarter of this year and we will let you know who the lucky beneficiaries are in due course.

Win a Golfbreaks.com break!

Get Golfing partner Golfbreaks.com has teamed up with Mizuno Pairs Tour to provide the chance to win some truly unbelievable prizes when you enter a Golfbreaks UK Pairs Tour event or the Golfbreaks Match Play this summer. 

European Tour, Solheim Cup, Open Qualifier and PGA venues across the UK feature in the schedule at great value prices. 

You and your playing partner are guaranteed a very warm welcome from the Golfbreaks team, a fun day out on the fairways and the opportunity to win a trip at one of the world’s finest golf destinations should you finish top of the leaderboard!

Every winning prize destination across the schedule is of the highest quality. Trips to Dubai, Dominican Republic, Portugal, France & Spain are all up for grabs with PGA TOUR, European Tour and Ryder Cup host courses part of the experience. Golfbreaks says it has gone all out with more than £30,000 worth of prizes to play for across the year and the top five pairs at every event taking home a prize!

Take your pick at Golf Breaks’ great value events below and enter here: