As 2024 ends I would like to take this opportunity to recap on the year and outline our plans for 2025.
Firstly, I would like to congratulate this year’s major event winners:
a) Golfer of the Year – Mike Steventon (Northcote)
b) Club Champion – Stuart Webb (Peninsula Kingswood)
c) Bowl Winner – Cec Bailey (Spring Valley)
d) Cranbourne Cup – Neil Campbell (Spring Valley)
e) Woodlands Cup winner – Ross Graham (Northcote).
This year we made several changes to the schedule. Some courses such as Latrobe and Sandhurst were cancelled due to cost considerations and new courses like Heritage, Heidelberg, Ranfurlie and Medway were added. In all we scheduled 21 events and surprisingly no event was cancelled due to bad weather.
As a reminder the Committee endeavours to schedule events every 2 to 3 weeks during the year with a mid-year break for winter. These events are held across some of Melbourne’s premium golf clubs with a focus on:
- Being accessible to members in terms of distance travelled
- A reputation as a high-level private course
- The retention of some premium courses
- Being cost effective for members
Notwithstanding these objectives there has been a noticeable drop off in attendance this year from an average of around 70 in 2023 to 50 in 2024. With the few fewer numbers, we have lost some of our leverage with the host clubs. This has been reflected by being restricted to a nine-hole shotgun start and in the case of the recent Rosebud event a one tee start.
We are all aware of the cost-of-living pressures and the increased subscription fees levied by our own clubs as the primary reason for the fall off in numbers.
So, we have reviewed the schedule for 2025 and reduced the number of events to 20. Heidelberg and the second events at Heritage and Rosebud have been deleted. We have kept the two events at Cranbourne as 2025 will be the last year it will be open. We have also deleted Ranfurlie and Medway based on feedback and introduced Eastwood and reintroduced Northern. The team events have proven to be popular and so we have retained those. The four premium courses of Yarra Yarra, Spring Valley, Woodlands and Riversdale have also been retained. With the proposed changes we are hoping to get closer to our long-term average of 70 players.
The MiScore/One Golf system has worked very well with only minor issues, mainly passwords and guest registrations cropping up at the beginning of some events. I thank you all for your ready acceptance as it has had dramatically reduced the resourcing required to run each event.
A thank you to the members who have rallied to represent the MDVets against the Hume Vets to be played on 20th January 2025 at the Medway Golf Club. The event is now online in our current booking system. There are a couple of positions open and we would like some reserve members as there may be some last-minute withdrawals. We have been successful for the last few years so let’s hope we can continue our winning ways in 2025.
Finally, we have started discussions with other Veteran Associations, Eastern and Victorian, with a view to offering full reciprocal rights to participate in each other events. Next year will be more ad hoc but in 2026 we hope to align our schedules and introduce challenge events like the one with Hume Vets.
We look forward to welcoming you to our first event for 2025 and if you have any feedback or suggestions, please don’t hesitate to pass it on to us.
On behalf of the Committee, I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Cheers
Larry Wilson